My first Deer

I was lucky enough this year to take my first Deer.  It was a little 4x4 but I was so proud to be able to harvest him.  James and I had gone out a couple of times before but hadn't had any luck.  They our friend calls us up and says that he has to bucks beded up on a hill.  So His wife and I get our guns and we hike up this hill.  James stayed in the truck with Araya.  We got within 50 yards of the bucks and they spooked.  Vicki and I both got a shot off.  She hit hers but mine went the other way.  It stopped 100 yards from me broadside so I took another shot (in the 80 mph wind).  I couldn't tell if I hit him or not but Vicki swears I did.  She fired a couple more shots at her buck to prevent it from going on to private property where we wouldn't be able to retrive it.  We waited for mine to bed down in the creek and went and gutted the other deer.  We walked into the valley and looked for my deer.  Another friend of ours walked into the creek to try to spook it out.  It wasn't there.  It must have ran up the creek and beded down some where else.  I left thinking that I hadn't hit it at all.  Come to find out a couple of weeks later.   The deer had ran on to a ranchers land and died there.  It was a 185 mule deer 5x4.  I was so excited that I hit it, even though there was no way that I would get the horns (he wasn't about to give them up).  But he said that I could come and take a picture with it if I wanted. 

A couple of days after I had shot at this deer James and I went out again hunting to try and get me another deer.  We went to a friends farm before dawn and saw a huge buck just after sun up.  It was a little ways away but we took a shot at it anyway.   We chased it for a couple of miles till it beded down in a field.  We set up on top of a hill to look and find a good way to put a stock on him.   Well we got about 200 yards away from the deer and we jumped a doe and the deer took off.  There was a spike standing about 250 yards away so I took a shot at that one and missed.  We walked and looked for blood and tracks but didn't find anything.  So we went back on top of the hill to see if we could find out where they went.  James glassed for about an hour (while I took a nap) and he spotted a pair of horns a mile away just above the grass.  So we walked a couple of miles into a tiny valley so we could at least get half way close.  As we were walking I said a little prayer that Heavenly Father would help me get this deer.  We were working hard for it and had passed up a couple in the weeks before because they were on private land and we didnt' want to be like other people around and take the deer with out permission. I got an immediate answer saying that he would help get me this deer if this is the one I wanted. We got to the fence line and he spotted us.  James to a quick shot at him (he had a bigger gun) but missed and got him to bed down.  He ran on the backside of a little hill so we ran to the hill to try to find him.  We got to the side if the hill and found him.  there was no way to get to him with out him seeing us so we ended up crawling on our bellies to try to sneek up on him.  We had the wind in our favor and luckily it was loud enough to cover our sound.  We inched up untill we were close enough I could get a shot.  He was laying in tall grass so it was hard to see his body.  After about 10 minutes of sitting and waiting the wind finally blew just right and I could see which way he was laying.  It was a straight on shot with me aiming at his chest.  I took the shot and spooked him up.  James fired another shot missing but changing his direction so he ran right towards us.  He got 100 yards from us and seeing us stopped, I fired one final shot (which was good because I was down to 1 bullet) and it hit him.  We only went 20  more yards and was down.  I was so excited I could hardly stand it.  We ran over to him and was in pure aww.  He was so beautiful, I don't think I have ever seen a prettier deer than him.  I know that I had help taking this deer, things just worked out so perfectly.  It is an experiance that I wont' soon forget.