first deer | Teen Ink

first deer

October 1, 2009
By Dillon Adolph BRONZE, Manhattan, Kansas
Dillon Adolph BRONZE, Manhattan, Kansas
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

It was the weekend of deer season and I still had yet to get my deer. It was a Sunday morning at about five thirty; the air was cold and crisp as a stepped out the door to see what it was like. As my dad went out to start the truck he noticed how cold it was and hurried and came back inside. We both made sure we dressed in our warm coats and bibs so we didn’t freeze. After I got dressed I got my Savage 243 cal. and a box of shells and headed up the stairs. I met my dad at the door and he was ready to go so we called our friend Jeff to tell him we are about to leave and will be a shop quick soon. Once we got to Shopquik my dad and I went in and got something to eat while we waited for Jeff to show up. When Jeff showed up we were ready to go so we headed out to where we were hunting. As we arrived to where we were going I had to jump out of the truck and open the gate so my dad and Jeff could pull in, I remember how cold it was when I went from being in the heater in the truck to the freezing cold air outside, it dried my eyes out as soon as I stepped out of the truck. The snow on the ground was bright enough that I didn’t even need a flashlight but I almost needed sunglasses. But after a while I got used to it and I was fine, so I got my nice warm bibs from behind the seat of the truck and put them on and I was good to go. When all three of us were ready we headed for the ridge of the hill we were going to sit on. Once we got sat down we waited for the sun to come up and hoped for the best that we would see some deer. Jeff thought we were in a really good spot because we were sitting behind a patch of grass, hidden so the deer wont see us. So we waited… and waited… until we decided that we were going to go somewhere else. We went back to the truck and called this guy named Dan, my dad asked him if he wanted to go to the next place we were heading for. So Dan said he would go, Jeff picked him up on the way and we all headed for the next place. When we showed up Jeff wanted to try something different, somebody will walk through the drawl and everyone else will sit on the side of the hill and see anything gets scared out of the timber. Dan said that he wanted to walk the drawl so he headed off in the truck about a half-mile and started to walk towards us in the timber. Jeff, my dad, and I waited on the hill looking down on the timber waiting to see if anything would get spooked out into the opening. As we patiently waited, we watched the squirrels at the bottom of the hill, about thirty minutes passed and then we heard big loud fast moving footsteps. Sure enough out came a small five-point buck on a dead run causing all the squirrels to scatter. The pounding of my heart sounded like somebody was beating on a wooden door I was so excited. I pulled my gun up looking for a good shot as the deer is getting further and further away and finally a shot. I was very disappointed when I missed I didn’t know what to do, while I was trying to figure that out Jeff took a shot and he missed too. I didn’t know if my scope was off or what but I had another shot so I took it. I nailed it! It dropped dead on the run at two hundred yards. “Nice Shot” said Jeff. I was so excited that I shot my first deer, and best of all it was a buck. I was so excited to go down and look at it; once we got down there I was so happy to see him lying there in the open. Then Jeff and I started dragging the deer up the hill, so now I was no longer cold so I had to shed some clothes off to stay cool. Once we finally got the deer half way up the hill we stopped and Jeff said we’d just gut it here. Jeff and I sat down and waited for someone to show up because the knives were in the truck. Finally Dan walked out of the timber, he asked if we got one because he heard the shot. So we showed Dan the deer and he was glad that I got one. We at last heard the truck coming and sure enough it was my dad so we ran over to the truck and got the knives and got ready to gut it. That was my first deer so I didn’t really know how to gut one so Jeff helped me, or I guess he pretty much did it all but I learned how too that day. It was still really cold but once you got your hands inside that hot deer it was almost warm. I got warm enough that I had to take off my coat to cool off a little. Once Jeff got all the guts out of it my dad and I pulled it the rest of the way up the hill to the truck, it was not as heavy as it was before we gutted it. Then we put the tag on the leg so it was legally killed, we noticed that we didn’t bring anything to clean our hands with. Luckily my dad had his water jug in his toolbox in the back of the truck so at least we had something to clean our hands with. Once the deer was loaded up I was so excited that my dad had me call my mom to tell her to bring her camera out to take pictures of my first deer. Then we finally ready to get out of there so we headed back over to the gait, as we were going down the road I couldn’t help but to look out the back window of the truck into the bed at my deer. I think I looked at it for a good fifteen minutes, but then we got to another one of out friends house. We went back in one of the pastures to hang the deer from a tree so the blood would drip out for a couple days before we butcher it in the garage. My mom just showed up in time so she took a few pictures of the deer and me. When she was done Jeff tied a rope around its antlers and threw the rest of the rope over a big tree limb. All at once everybody grabbed hold of the rope and helped pull the deer up into the tree out of coyote reach. We finally got the deer up and tied the rope off to the tree trunk. After all that we were done for the day, so I told Jeff and Dan thank you for helping us out with the deer. About a week later all the blood had dripped out and was ready to bring home and butcher. Once we got it home we hung it up in the garage rafters and started cutting. We got so much meat that we didn’t even know what to do with it all so we gave some to Jeff and Dan for helping us. Then my dad cut the head off so we could take it in and get the antlers mounted since it was my first deer. The next day my dad took it to pawn shop and put in our order how we wanted it done. After a whole three months I got my antlers back so I got to hang them up in my room and admire it. We had some really good deer jerky the next few days.


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This article has 1 comment.


billy bob said...
on Oct. 9 2009 at 9:57 am
pretty good in parts.