During my first deer drive in 1945, I missed a chance to take a deer. Mesmerized by my first sighting of a graceful doe bounding past within 20 yards, I didn’t even raise my new 30-30 (model 94 Winchester). I was teased all day about it by my giggling cousins, and told I’d thereafter have to be a driver only. Near the end of our first drive the next morning, I vindicated myself by taking three of four deer that suddenly appeared in a small opening about 50 yards ahead of me. I fired all seven of the bullets loaded in my rifle at them as fast as I could. I was thereafter allowed to take regular turns as a “stander.”

Secretly, however, I hated being a stander. Not only was it boring during long drives, but when deer finally showed up, they almost always caught me by surprise. They bounded past so rapidly that, by the time I got my rifle to my shoulder, struggling to line up my rear sight with my front sight on a deer making up-and-down, 8-foot-high leaps, most of those deer disappeared into dense forest cover behind me before I could pull my trigger. I did occasionally get one as a stander, nonetheless. I also hated it because I wanted to take a big buck; but throughout the 15 years I took part in making those family drives, only one person in our gang actually took one worthy of taxidermy, making it obvious to me that making drives was not the best way to hunt big bucks.

In 1960, I finally talked my father into hunting whitetails on our own, using a new-fangled hunting method called “stump sitting,” later called “stand hunting.” From the outset, however, we soon realized we had a lot to learn. The first morning I tried it, while actually sitting on a stump, I soon spotted a big buck about 100 yards away bounding straight toward me on an adjacent deer trail. At this point, my well-developed deer drive instincts took over. I immediately raised my rifle and fired two quick shots at the buck, after which, unharmed, it quickly disappeared.

“That was certainly dumb of me,” I realized afterwards. “I should have waited to fire until it was much nearer.”

Shortly after lunch that day, I had a second chance to take that buck. This time, it was slowly walking toward me with its antlers glinting in the sun about 150 yards away; it was traveling along the deer trail that passed two feet away from the trunk of a big pine tree I was leaning against while sitting on the ground. It was sunny, unusually warm, the wind was calm, and dripping clumps of snow on evergreen boughs around me were occasionally cascading to the ground—a combination of factors that I eventually discovered made older bucks especially vulnerable.

This time, I decided, I will let that buck get as close as possible before raising my rifle. That wasn’t a good idea, but I didn’t know it then.

Onward the buck came, only halting twice to scan its surroundings, now made noisy by falling clumps of wet snow. Soon, it was only 50 yards away, then 25, after which I began holding my breath and didn’t dare even blink an eye. At this point, it seemed strange that a buck this big—a nice 8-pointer—had not yet noticed me sitting with my back pressed against that big tree trunk.

I began to realize I had a serious problem. How in the world would I be able to raise my rifle without instantly alarming that buck? Could I be quick enough to take an accurate shot at it before it leaped 8 feet into the air like they all typically do when suddenly alarmed by a hunter at very short range? Or should I wait until it had taken a few bounds away before firing? At the same time, I was totally fascinated by seeing a big, unsuspecting, wild buck so near for the first time.

When the deer was 10 feet away, it abruptly halted. I don’t know if it had finally noticed me, or had gotten a whiff of me, but it suddenly rose up to stand on its hind legs. What it was planning to do after doing that, I don’t know. At this point, I was miraculously aiming at the middle of its white-furred brisket, and I fired (a very quickly fatal shot).

“Wow!” I then remember saying, trembling all over, “Never again will I let a big buck get that close before firing at it.”

A few hours later, however, after helping me drag my first trophy-class buck to our car, my father, who had yet to see a deer, decided that we should continue hunting until dark before heading home. Thus, I was taking a break at the base of a steep and densely wooded slope an hour or so before sunset, sitting on a boulder while munching on a chocolate bar containing almonds. That’s when I unexpectedly heard a shot at the top of that slope. Then I heard a deer bounding down that slope toward me.

While choking on almonds, I grabbed my rifle and cocked it. I couldn’t see the deer—a 6-pointer—until it slowed down only 10 feet away, where the ground leveled out on my right. I was still choking on almonds when it stepped broadside into a small opening. A quick heart/lung shot dropped it in its tracks. I then noticed that it had been nicked by a bullet low on its right hind leg.

Shortly, I heard something else plunging down that hillside. As expected, it was my father, following the usual great amount of blood initially found on a fleeing deer’s trail which had been hit in a leg (after which bleeding soon completely shuts down). Pleased to finally see that buck lying on the ground beside me, Dad smiled and said, “I wish we started hunting like this years ago.”

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