Your first memorable deer encounter

[Lockdown]

What was the first deer encounter that REALLY stands out to you? It doesn’t have to be your first actual encounter, and it doesn’t have to end in a kill.

Maybe it’s something that makes you laugh. Maybe it’s just a memory you cherish. Or maybe it’s the encounter that “lit the fire” for your passion in the outdoors...

[Lockdown]

My first memory came from an abandoned farm grove. I was 12, and couldn’t even draw the minimum requirement of 40 lbs. Dad couldn’t stomach me being legal age to hunt, but not able. So I headed afield with my cousin’s old Bear compound set at 37 lbs. it was an old bow... I’m pretty sure the cams had metal brackets attaching them to the limbs.

I was set up on the ground in a thicket that dad and I had prepared ahead of time. There was a clearing in the old grove that was hour glass shaped. I was set up where it necked down.

Right at prime time I catch movement...

Oh my god... buck fever is real. And so is doe fever! my heart pounded out of my chest as I reached for my bow. I hunkered down and let her get past me just as dad and I had planned. I had to turn to my right a little and draw.

There she stood broadside... 10 yards tops... just browsing. She was oblivious. And I was freaking out.

All I had to do was get my bow back... but I couldn’t. On my 2nd attempt I gave it a Herculean effort, even raising my bow at a 45 to muster as much strength as possible. I STILL couldn’t do it.

The ol’ doe caught movement and I was taught a life lesson in how patient a deer could be. 10 yards tops, face to face, she stared a hole right through me for what seemed like forever. She eventually figured me out and moved off hastily.

After I settled down I tried drawing my bow again and did so successfully this time. I didn’t kill a deer with my bow that year, but that encounter was burned into my mind. It was my first up close and personal encounter. And the first time of many that my “sure thing” slipped through my fingers...

[Forkhorn]

The first year dad brought me bow hunting, think it was 2014 or 2015. It was early season and my school buddy and his dad had permission to hunt a property close by and let me hunt too. My buddy’s dad gave us a spot he had a trail cam up at(this was before Dad found the Beast) and told us to set up a groundblind there. So dad and I go out and sit the morning hunt, no deer. This property has an old cemetery on it and I asked dad if we could stop by and check it out on the way out. We pop out of the wood line and can see the cemetery about 200 yds away. Dad whispers, Carter Get Down, I see a deer in the cemetery! So we get down and I was all excited. Told Dad, let’s put a stalk on it!!
So we slowly make our way down the wood line in the tall crp grass and get to about 10 yds from the edge of the CRP grass where it meets the cemetery. Finally see that it was a fawn feeding under one of the big oak trees about 20 yds away in the grass cemetery. I was just about ready to draw my bow and rise up when the dang thing beds down. Now what I was thinking!
Dad has his doe bleat and grunt tube with so he starts bleating and grunting just to get it to stand up. It wouldn’t stand up so he crawled 10 yards to my right along the edge and proceeds to call. Still no movement, so finally dad looks at me and signals me to get ready. I’m thinking, what is he doing now!!! All the sudden out of the corner of my eye, I see something flying thru the air and land near the fawn. Dad threw his grunt tube past the fawn and guess what, she got up . She starts trotting off straight away and young me thinks I can pull off a Chris Kyle. The thing is running away, at least 80 yds and I draw my bow . Dad starts yelling, No Carter, No, Don’t shoot!!!

Didn’t end up killing the deer but boy was I fired up. Shaking like a leaf and had my heart pounding!!! I’ll never forget that hunt.

[Andyschulte]

My first bow kill.

It was a beautiful evening, snow falling pretty hard. A group of does started working in just before the end of shooting light, I drew, settled and let it go. She kicked just like I’d seen in videos. I couldn’t believe it.. It was perfect.

I got down, found the arrow soaked in blood, and had an incredible blood trail in the snow.

With it being my first time, I could not believe that it worked out like that. It was the perfect scenario, exactly how you dream it works out. I wish all of my shots worked out like that lol

I was so giddy that I tanned the hide too.

[Chad Gus 715]

The year was 2000,i was 20 years old, on my first out of state bowhunt. It was the last morning of my hunt, i either forgot to set my alarm or it didn't go off, so i was running about 20 minutes behind schedule. I hurriedly grabbed my stuff and head out, it's a 10 mile drive to where i was hunting, i get there and i can't find my release. I don't have time to run back to camp, so i go and sit in my stand, and sure as a giant 10pt comes out of the riverbottom. Walks down the treeline I'm set up in and stops 13 yards away perfectly broadside, after a few seconds he continues on his way and out of my life forever. To this day, i have nightmares about this, his rack is permanently etched into my mind.

[greenhorndave]

First ever bow hunt. My dad took me to a cousin’s farm. He didn’t really know what he was doing and neither did I.

So he went one way and I went the other. Meandered around the woods. Saw squirrels that I thought were deer in my 12-year-old imagination when I first heard crunching in the leaves. Thought about shooting them but didn’t.

I was on my way out before dark and I had seen this 20-foot diameter pile of rocks in the middle of this field once. Now there was standing corn in that field. So I thought I should check out if anything was in that pile.

So I made my way out there. No idea what the wind was even doing. Well, I almost got all the way out there when a huge buck stands up, looks briefly and then proceeds to clear his giant bumm over 7-foot-tall rows of corn. Scared the bejabbers out of me. I’d never seen anything that big move and jump that high.

That was also my intro to farm-country bedding.

My mom got a real anti-hunting streak in her in the coming years and I got busy with other things before coming back to hunting decades later, but I remember that giant buck’s huge posterior hurdling corn rows.

[Hawthorne]

When I started getting into summer glassing probably close to 20 years ago i was in Ohio and I sat down next to a standing corn field. Recently I learned from the wenzel brothers how to do a snort wheeze with your mouth in a seminar I went to. I decided just to do one out of no where and out stepped a giant velvet 8 point in velvet looking at me probably 30yds away. A doe and two fawns came out also to invest.For some reason that encounter stayed with me because I’ve seen many nice bucks since then

[hunter_mike]

When i was maybe 7 or 8 years old, the neighbor kid who was probably in high school at the time came over to our house on his 4 wheeler and had a nice 8 point buck bow kill strapped to the back rack to show off. It was the first time i recall seeing a deer up close like that. To me at that moment, the neighbor kid was the coolest dude on the planet and after that i think i was drawn to deer.

[Wolfie417]

Didn't end in a kill.... but the first time I ever hunted deer it was in northern Minnesota. I saw a lone doe being chased and eaten alive by 3 wolves. Extremely cool encounter that showed a young man the reality of nature.

[Tim H]

I think the first memorable deer encounter that stands out for me was my first year bowhunting.

I was 13 years old. I'd been hunting for a couple of seasons with the rifle and actually was successful killing a doe and a nub buck. But both my kills were quick and fairly far away. I started out with shooting a hand me down Bear bow. It was greyish in color and I learned to shoot fingers with it. Back then my Grandpa built arrows in his shop and had made me the ugliest of arrows for it. They were an aluminum Easton arrow with greyish camo with pink and white fletching. I really disliked the color of them because pink wasn't a killer color. But now looking back I wish I still had one of those ugly arrows.

In those years when I hunted with my Dad we had used corn piles. My Dad had gotten permission on a buddies private land that butted up next to a field. I remember walking down the edge of the field to the corner where we would head into the hardwoods to our already setup stands. Mine was a stand my Dad made at work when he worked at the paper mill and his was a steel ladder stand. He would walk me to my stand where there was a hand made ladder from two wooden poles and two by fours going up to a crotch in a maple tree. My Dad would bait my corn in the crib and then hold the ladder while I climbed up the rickety ladder into a sketchy treestand made of boards and pipes. My Dad would then head further down the transition where his ladder stand was.

In those days my Dad always gave me the best spots to hunt. He wasn't a great hunter but he wanted nothing more than to see me have success. Before the night of my encounter I had put in a few sits already and hadn't seen anything but blue jays and squirrels. My Dad would tell me to be patient and I'll see one. Well about half hour before quitting time I heard a pretty loud bunch of rustling crunching leaves. The footsteps were coming from the alders just next to me and were getting closer. I thought, who could be walking just before dark. Maybe it was my Dad walking around. As the noise got louder I saw movement between the trees. Holy crap it's a deer! Holy crap I can see it's rack! I get ready with my bow and as it's coming down a runway I draw my bow. The little 5 point was broadside and going to come into shooting distance. I think it was 15 yards or so. I steady my pin behind the shoulder and let the string go! And at that moment see my arrow go right over the small bucks back clinking off small alders behind it. The buck does a quick U turn and heads back in the alders.

This hunt stands out to me because of the noise the buck made and how close I got. It really put an impression on me as a bowhunter. After missing that buck I missed two more does with bow that season. A very exciting but frustrating year.

[Jrdeerhuntr]

My first memorable encounter happened when I was 13 or 14. Dad took me out for opening gun season. We did not have any stands at the time and had permission to hunt this small strip of woods that had a creek running through it. I ended up sitting at the base of tree and Dad on small downed log. This encounter will be seared in my mind forever, but it was a hour after sun up and I was starting to get a little restless when i heard some leaves crunching behind me. I could not see behind me due to the width of the trunk so I sat motionless. A few moments later I caught movement out of my peripherals to the right. It kept coming and was eventually moved from my 4 a clock position to now 2 a clock. The buck was only like 10 feet away and he all of sudden just stopped and stared a hole right in me. I could not move, I was frozen as he stared. While in the middle of this intense stare down he stomps his foot so hard it almost me jump. again he stomps his foot and begins to take off. Being young and in experienced I popped off 5 shots as fast as I could pull the trigger. Of course I hit nothing, but over 20 years later that memory is still as vivid as the moment it happened.

[JP BowHunter]

I’ve enjoyed reading each of these posts.


For me it has to be the first time I had ever gone deer hunting. I was to small to hunt anything on my own but my Dad took me with him. We sat in a huge oak tree that my Grandpa had built a platform in many years before hand. My job was to keep an eye on one side of the woods while Dad kept an eye on the other side. I was locked in! Nothing moved on my side without my watchful taking notice. When evening started to set in some movement caught my attention and there he was, a nice 8 pointer. I told Dad “ there’s a deer over here, and it’s a buck!” He calmed me down and got his bow into position. The buck made its way into range and Dad made a perfect double lung shot. So my first ever deer hunt resulted in a big buck for my Dad that I spotted. It was a great experience and hooked me on hunting for my whole life. I can remember every detail, i was probably 10 years old.

[greenhorndave]

Didn't end in a kill.... but the first time I ever hunted deer it was in northern Minnesota. I saw a lone doe being chased and eaten alive by 3 wolves. Extremely cool encounter that showed a young man the reality of nature.

Well, not in a kill by you.

That must have been remarkable to see in person.

[hcooper84]

I have my first gun memory and my first bow memory to share.

My dad and I always gun hunted on the ground in lawn chairs together. I was 10 years old and this was my 3rd year shotgun hunting, to say I'd had nothing but bad luck up until that point is an understatement. We were sitting at the start of a finger that runs out of a woodlot. Its was a cold crisp morning for a young boy so I was ready to go by 8 am. I told my dad 5 more minutes then lets go. Just as we were standing up to leave we see a buck chasing a doe across a field atleast 500 yds away. My dad hits his grunt tube as loud as he could, we did not expect the buck to be able to hear it, but he stopped on a dime, then came sprinting our way. Reflecting now the buck was probably only 2.5 yrs old, but he looked like a giant to 10 yr old me. The buck enters the finger about 40 yds from us and I start blasting. My first shot the buck shakes his head and keeps coming. After my second shot my dad and I both start unloading. If it wasnt for him coming across the field from our grunt I would say this buck was deaf. We shot probably 6-8 times before he decided he should get out of there. But then, as he began running off, my dad hit the grunt again and the buck stopped again!! We were able to get another 4-5 shots off at him. He ran across a road to another property we are able to hunt. We found him within 20 yds of the road. The buck had 5 holes in him and a sixth if you count the hole in his ear from the very first shot I took. For a young deer he was nice, ended up right at 130".

My first shot at a deer with a bow was a rollercoaster. I was around 12 at this time and my dad set me up on a small hillside over looking a creek. To my right the hillside leveled out with the rest of the woods. It was early October. Within an hour i had a small doe down in the creek area in front of me. She was probably 25-30 yards away but I felt like I couldn't move. She wasn't on to me, I was just nervous about shooting at a deer with my bow. I kept waiting for the "right" moment to draw back and get a shot but, she walked away before it could happen. I was pretty disappointed I let that opportunity slip away. I didn't see another deer until the last half hour of shooting light. To my right I saw a nice buck walking towards me but at angle it looked like he would pass at about 25-30 yards. I would still consider him a decent buck today. Then right behind him a dandy buck popped in to view walking the same path as the other buck. I had never been so excited! Too excited though, I dont remember ranging or really even aiming at the deer. Heck I dont remember if I even picked a deer to aim at. Sure enough that arrow was never to be found. I'm guessing I sailed it a ways over them both. As much of a screw up that hunt was it hooked me on bowhunting for sure.

[greenhorndave]

These stories are great. Love the venison swiss cheese gun story Hcooper.

It would be nice to see entries from everyone on the site.