Wow, this picture really takes me back a few years. Almost 13 now to be exact. This is one day I will certainly never forget. The first day of the Pennsylvania firearms season in 2000. I was just 10 years old, sitting on my dads lap in a big ladder stand. We were overlooking a thick creek bottom below some fields. The morning started off with 9 does funneling through early, surprisingly without the company of any bucks. I fell asleep shortly after, and awoke to snowflakes falling a few hours later. Around 930, this buck appeared out of a dense stand of hemlocks and made his way down a logging road in our direction. I propped up on the shooting rail of the stand preparing for the shot, and when he stood broadside I took it. The .223 barked and he disappeared back into the hemlocks he emerged from before, out of our sight. We waited over a half hour before we climbed down to take a look. After a short search, we found him only 15 yards from where he stood. The shot had been perfect. Not a monster, but my first deer on my first hunt. Since the day Dad snapped this picture of me in my pumpkin suit on the logging road where that buck paused, hunting has completely enveloped every aspect of my life. Archery is now my biggest passion, and without being introduced into the woods at such a young age by my Father and Uncle, I wouldn't have accomplished everything I have today.

Comments

Nick McPherson

Awesome first deer