when I was 14 years old, I had a friend who had a black bear compound bow that was barely legal draw weight. He didn’t use it, so I begged my parents to buy it for me. After flinging Walmart arrows at a bale of straw with a paper plate attached to it for about a week, I felt “confident” enough to kill a deer. I knew nothing about archery, and less about deer hunting. My father (only killing 1 deer in his life at the time) decided he would show me a “good spot”. As we walked to the top of a hill overlooking a creek, he preached the entire way “don’t step on any sticks or leaves, if there are deer in the creek you’ll scare them”. Being mid November, of course I stepped on a twig that snapped and of course there were deer in the creek, and of course they took off. My father got mad, stormed out of the woods, jumped in the truck and left my butt standing there in the woods with my bow in hand. With nowhere to go, I decided to walk the edge of the woods in the direction the deer went. After covering half the length of the woods, I caught a glimpse of deer coming out of the woods across the cut bean field (probably 300 yards away). In my mind, if I tucked a few feet into the woods next to me… these deer may just wonder over towards me and I may just get an opportunity to fling an arrow at one. I’m standing there, leaning up against a tree watching these deer make absolutely no attempt to head my direction for about 30 min. All of the sudden, I heard something walking up behind me through the woods that sounded like a dog. I slowly turned around, fully expecting to see a dog… nope. It was a HUGE yearling doe that must have shaken her spots off 50ft further back in the woods, and she was walking right towards me with her head down. I slowly pulled the bow back, and when she got to around 10 steps away, she cut 90 degrees and exposed her “paper plate”. I let that arrow fly, and heard for the first time a sound that I’ve learned to love and appreciate over the years. She disappeared behind some brush ,and I heard a crash about 30 yards through the woods. For me, a little luck went a long ways for me that night. That was my very first deer, and the beginning of a lifelong addiction that I’m still battling 27 years later. I have come a long ways since then, although I admittedly still rely on some degree of luck in the deer woods. If only they had cell phones or I had a drivers license back then… it would have saved me the mile hike to the nearest house after dark so I could call for a ride home for myself and my 60 lb trophy.
