When I wrote this, Father’s Day was only a few days away and I had just placed a card for my dad in an envelope to be mailed. While thinking of what to write, I couldn’t help but think back to a few memories in the deer woods with him etched in my memory bank. I realized that I had documented one hunt in an old hunting and fishing journal that I began writing in beginning in June of 1990 when I was just 12 years old. My parents bought me this journal while we were on a camping trip in northern Michigan.

After removing the dust and cobwebs from the old journal, I opened the pages, and here’s the story I found. This was a shorter version, so I added more details which came to mind as I delved deeper into this particular hunt.

In early November 1990, my parents and I had traveled up to my grandparents’ house to visit for the weekend. During our fall visits, my dad, brother, and I would go bowhunting on their property, which consisted of a mixture of farm fields, hardwoods, and a stand of mature white pines that my mom and grandpa had planted as a windbreak when she was a youngster.

Running east and west along the entire northern edge of the property was an old, abandoned railroad grade. When my grandpa was a teenager, he remembers seeing hobos hitching a ride on the train heading west towards Big Rapids, which was the nearest city. Now, all that was left were tall grasses covering the long and narrow strip where the railroad tracks once ran. My grandpa would occasionally brush hog the grade to prevent it from getting too overgrown, which provided a clear path for us to walk and to ride his four-wheeler.

After my dad and I drove to the east end of the property where a gravel road gave us access to the railroad grade, he parked his truck and we walked towards the west end. Eventually, there was a section of the grade where it navigated through two large hills. I climbed the smaller one to the right while my dad scaled the steeper one. After parting ways and climbing to the top of the hill, I sat down behind some brush and a large stump for cover.

Once we let the area settle down for a bit, my dad began rattling a pair of antlers together, which were from a buck he had shot one year during the firearm deer season. While my dad was clashing the antlers together, I began scouring the surrounding area for any signs of deer movement. About 20 minutes had passed when, to my surprise, a four-point buck appeared from the west. He walked right down the railroad grade as if he was a hobo from the past trying to hitch a ride into town. At 35 yards, he finally stopped on a dime and burned a hole right through me. Not realizing it would be better to wait for him to look away, I pulled back my old compound bow and flung an arrow in his direction. The bad thing was, he had already high-tailed it out of there as my aluminum arrow soared through the air, fell short and stuck into the dirt. As a 12-year-old, it was devastating. However, not wanting to call it quits, I decided to continue to hunt.

I tried to shake off the miss, but it was still very fresh on my mind when a second buck appeared. “Was this my imagination?” I thought. As he continued to close the distance, I noticed that this buck had six points up top. Once he reached the 50-yard mark, he saw the blob on top of the hill, decided that he had enough, and that it was time to do an about face and go back from where he had come. Needless to say, there was no shot opportunity. My devastation worsened, especially since it was the last day to hunt on this trip.

Later, four does which I spotted off in the distance provided me with a good distraction, but the sting of failing to connect on two shot opportunities ran deep.

While taking the walk of shame down the railroad grade back to my dad’s truck, he reassured me that there were going to be many more opportunities to shoot a deer that fall. However, as a 12-year-old, this was a hard pill to swallow. Despite the miss, Dad’s encouragement still resonates with me today—especially during those tough seasons while chasing whitetails with bow in hand.

Although there have been many exciting times while hunting solo, the bond and camaraderie that you experience with loved ones in the deer woods stick with you. These deer hunts with family and friends are the ones I remember the most, and they offer soothing thoughts, especially during times of stress and anxiety.

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