Memories of the Hunt and Life

Memories of the Hunt and Life

My dad and I have always taken time to hunt together at least once a year. From squirrel hunting in Arkansas to deer hunting in south Texas, we always have a good time. I was about ten when I killed my first deer. It was about 30 minutes after sunrise. My dad had scouted the area the day before and saw several deer where he set up my stand. I was freezing my butt off, when out of nowhere a deer walked out. At that instant, my heart started pounding like it would jump out of my chest. Then all of these phrases from my dad started running through my head about what to do. So I raised my gun, clicked the safety off, and rested the sights on my first deer. I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. The buck hit the ground. After the rush of adrenaline, I knew I was hooked on deer hunting.

Later in the morning, my dad drove up and asked me, “Ok, so where is the rabbit or squirrel?” He knew that I had a habit of shooting at them while on the deer stand in the past. I told him to go look at that big rabbit I shot about 50 yards past a big clump of brush. The look on his face when I told him that was one of “you’re going to get your butt beat.” After a couple of minutes of scolding, I got down out of my stand and headed towards the deer with my dad in tow. When we got close enough, my dad saw that it was not a rabbit. His face lit up like a lighthouse on a foggy night. I didn’t know if he was going to hug me or kick me in the butt. We high-fived, and he said that he was proud of me.

So we loaded the deer on the hood of the truck and paraded it around town, to show everyone how proud he was of my first deer. After taking many pictures and gloating over the deer, he started to show me how to skin it. It was now later in the morning and it had warmed up a bit. After we skinned the deer, it had warmed to where the yellow-jackets were swarming around us. Just as we finished, my dad got a yellow-jacket pinned between him and the rib cage of the deer. He got stung, as he had many times before with no problems. After cleaning myself up, he yelled for me to come into his room. Upon getting