What did you use to kill your first deer?

[salmonchaser]

Nice 3x4 mule deer out of the same general area Dale was likely hunting. Big wide open country lots of mule deer then. Fall of 1967, I was 12. 03/A3 Springfield we had recently purchased from the Army Navy store. Damn thing was pretty heavy for a 12 year old.
I remember watching that buck come thru the Juniipers after being pushed my direction, distance wasn’t great and I let him get closer. Placed the front site on his shoulder, centered it in the rear peep and squeezed. When I recovered from the recoil he was gone, vanished. I sprinted down to where I had seen him last and ran right passed him, stone dead.
Pictures are lost to history and the indiscriminate nature of fire. Remarkably the antlers had some how survived. When we were cleaning out the house after my dad died a few years ago I found two sets of antlers with my name on them. My first mule deer and Rocky Mtn Elk.

 

[diverdown]

First Deer was in 1962 in Maine. A Marlin Texan 336 wearing a 3X Weaver scope in .35 Caliber nailed a fat doe at roughly 60 yards.

 

[GregoryB.]

Winchester 1400 12 gauge and double 00 buck. Nice 8 point.

 

[FOTIS]

Rem 700 BDL 25-06.

117 BT Hornady and IMR 7828

 

[JMRhino]

Circa 1986 - I shot my first whitetail deer, a fork horn with a tiny brow tine (it would be too generous to call it a five point), in Greene Co. Georgia. He was walking left to right, broadside at approximately 40 yards. Buck fever was fully engaged, and I don't ever recall being that excited again until watching my 10-year-old son shoot his 1st doe. I was using my dad's Sako Forester .243 with a Redfield 1st focal plane scope on it. I still have the rifle and scope; however, I have replaced the scope with a little newer option. The Redfield was getting a little hazy.

The buck ran 40 yards dead on his feet. I haven't seen a blood trail as wide or as prolific since. It's funny because I recall being scared that I missed even though he donkey kicked and I could see blood from the stand.

 

[rjm158]

I would have been 25 and bought a Remington 700 BDL 308 because I'd read the 308 was slightly more accurate than a 30-06. I didn't know squat about scopes and so I bought a 3-9x Bushnell Sportview at Wal-Mart for it. I didn't reload so I bought some 150 gr Winchester Silvertips.

My dad/family didn't deer hunt so I really didn't have any guides or mentors and was feeling my way through it. I was hunting opening morning on some Army Corps of Engineer land with some guys I worked with at the PD. One told me that if I got a decent shot at something not to wait too long because there would be a lot of people out and if I passed on one, the others wouldn't. He wasn't joking. It wasn't long before the area to my west sounded like D-Day at Normandy.

Just at legal hunting light, I heard a shot to my right (south) and about 45 seconds later an 8 point ran up and stopped about 75 yds away, broadside. I quickly figured it wouldn't get much better than that so I brought the rifle up and fired. The bullet shaved hair off the front of his chest. He took a few steps forward and stopped. This time I settled the crosshairs behind his shoulder and squeezed the trigger. I could see the hole in his skin but he bounded forward a few more steps and stopped again. I worked the bolt and set the crosshairs on his neck and pulled the trigger. The rifle recoiled and when I brought it back down the deer was out of sight. The grass where I was hunting was thigh high and I was on a slight slope. I was sure i had screwed it up but i thought I would go look to see if I could find any blood. I walked to where I last saw him and he was on the ground, dead. I was excited and nervous at the same time because I now had to field dress him. The second shot had went in behind the shoulder and blown a huge hole in the armpit of the right front leg but because the deer's adrenaline was up, he didn't react much. Of course, I didn't know any of that at the time, I just knew he hadn't dropped like I had imagined.

Never having dressed a deer, or even seen it done, all I had was a pocket guide that Federal produced with hunting and ammo tips, and it included directions on how to do it. I drug him to a small depression nearby, used a set of wire stretchers my dad insisted I bring for the purpose, and got to work. What seemed like an eternity later, I was done and began a LONG drag out of the field to the road where I was parked. At that time I didn't have a truck, only a 1979 Thunderbird, but one of the guys I was hunting with saw me dragging him and came over to help. We got him into the trunk and off I went to check him in. At that time, the Department of Conservation had check stations where you had to take your deer and they checked tags, weight, and sex (no antler restrictions then). I can still recall that he weighed 137 pounds. After that, I took him to my uncle's house and gave the deer to him after he cut the antlers off for me (which I still have).

Ron

 

[wvbuckbuster]

December 1980 antlerless season in Hardy County about 5 hour drive from home. Our area had no such seasons on does at the time and buck season was as usual a bust so four of us headed north with our permits. Afternoon of the second day walking out a logging road in the national forest I jumped a deer and commenced to working the bolt on a Harrington Richards Mod 301 full stock 308 Win loaded with Sierra 125gr Pro Hunters. (Wish I still had this rifle) The thrid shot connected hitting mid neck. Wasn't a bid doe but I couldn't have been more happy.

 

[RememberBaker]

My first deer was a doe with a .50 TC White Mountain Carbine, the next day I shot another one with a TC Seneca .45, I shot a heck of a lot more deer with muzzleloaders before I killed my first one with a 30-06 that I had put together from parts my late uncle gave me, an FN Mauser 98 action that he had that was unserialized and in the white, a trigger from something and a Winchester model 70 take off barrel that I had cut and rethreaded

 

[JMRhino]

Circa 1986 - I shot my first whitetail deer, a fork horn with a tiny brow tine (it would be too generous to call it a five point), in Greene Co. Georgia. He was walking left to right, broadside at approximately 40 yards. Buck fever was fully engaged, and I don't ever recall being that excited again until watching my 10-year-old son shoot his 1st doe. I was using my dad's Sako Forester .243 with a Redfield 1st focal plane scope on it. I still have the rifle and scope; however, I have replaced the scope with a little newer option. The Redfield was getting a little hazy.

The buck ran 40 yards dead on his feet. I haven't seen a blood trail as wide or as prolific since. It's funny because I recall being scared that I missed even though he donkey kicked and I could see blood from the stand.

Since I mentioned it in my original post, I thought it’s appropriate to include a photo of my youngest’s first deer. He is on the left only to be upstaged by big brother in the blue coat. It was a doe at 120 yards from a ground blind with his youth Remington 700 in 7-08. I made some reduced recoil loads for them both with Nos 120gn BT. They were shockingly effective. This is coming up on 15 years ago. Time is cruising…

 

[ReloadKy]

Isn't it amazing how the first buck is burned into the mind? I daresay most of us can recall the smells, the feel of the wind on our skin, and every detail of that first buck. And likely it is true for the first of each specie of game animal we tagged.

The day I mentioned above shooting that 5 pt I can distinctly remember it being pretty cold that day. Probably about 32 degrees and when I began to field dress the deer (with guidance) my cold hands burned from the warmth of the bucks innards, lol!!!

 

[Wolfshead]

CVA Optima V2 .50 cal. 300 grain Harvester PT gold bullet over 110 grains by volume Blackhorn 209.
I’m sure I’ve told this here before, but I came late to the hunting game.
I was 53 when I took my first deer, a Doe.
A bunch of us had been driving deer all morning, and being new I volunteered to be a driver. So all morning long I help break through some thick stuff to push deer in various places that we hunted that day.
On our last property I was able to sit and have the deer be driven to me.
We walked in to our spots and I picked out a tree to sit against, as everyone was getting into position.
I sat down, got my muzzleloader set up in my lap, looked up, and about 100 yards right in front of me a Doe got up to look to see what I was doing. Set the cross hairs on her shoulder and pulled the trigger!
My first deer!

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

12 years old. 3x3 Muley buck at around 300 yards. Model 70 7mm Mag with 140g CT NBTs.

 

[6mm Remington]

Remington Model 600 6mm Remington Centennial Model made in 1964. 75th of Montana Statehood and 100th anniversary of the Montana Territory. My father purchased the rifle (for me) new in a small mom/pop grocery store in Nye Montana a few years after first seeing it in the store.

1972 hunting season (12 years old) was my first hunting season of yeah! I had an two antelope and a deer tag. I shot my antelope first, actually two antelope a day or so into the hunt. My grandfather LeRoy was with us. I'll make it short but we came over a rise and about 15 antelope took off running away from us and went out of sight. A couple minutes later they came hauling the mail right back to us and ran past us about 50 yards away. My dad and I were seperated about 25 yards apart and at the end of the group came a doe and a buck running together. Roughly 30 yards trailing them came another buck. My dad and I both shot and it sounded like one shot. Three antelope dropped. My father killed the trailing buck and I hit the buck and doe with my first shot just as the doe ran on the other side of the buck. Both animals dropped at the shot. We had to shoot the buck and the doe one more time but they were essentially dead when they hit the ground. So I just killed two antelope with one shot, first year hunting, first animals.

A few days later deer season opened up and I shot a nice mule deer doe with my 6mm Remington. Pretty good year.

The 6mm Remington in this rifle took a lot of deer and antelope over the years. Here's an antelope years later and the rifle is still going strong. I'm on the left facing the camera. My buddy is on the right. My son took his first antelope with the same rifle and load.

 

[Cowboy307]

Remington model 760 in 270 Win. 51 years ago. In the hills of western PA.

 

[kujuak]

52 years ago, Ruger carbine 44mag, mule deer doe , deer moving through snowy timber ,40yds with iron sights. First shot at big game by a young city boy in the the British Columbia woods. Wish I still had that rifle (and my hair ).

 

[cloverleaf]

Borrowed Rem 700 BDL in 25-06. Most memorable part other than the deer was a ranging Herters scope. As I recall it had circles of various sizes with corresponding hash marks on the vertical wire Never saw one again.... CL

 

[Teknys]

Oh boy ….. Nov 1980, REM 700 7Mag. Whitetail doe in WI. Opening morning one and done as 3 does trotted by.

 

[Soup]

I used a 336 Marlin in 35 Remington. I bought it from Leslie Edelman's in Horsham, PA when I came home from Vietnam. $75.00 NIB. Shot a 7 point in Carbon County, PA , second day of the season.
Semper Fidelis
Soup

"Down South 68-69"

 

[swampghost]

JC Higgins 12 gauge with #1 buckshot. A 1 1/2 year old 6 point running ahead of a pack of hounds in 1974. That was how we deer hunted when I was growing up. There weren't as many deer as there are now and to be honest'; my grandfather (who taught me what little I know) didn't know how to deer hunt any other way.