I remember going deer hunting for his first time in my life at about the age of 11 years old. One of my friends father had some land in Homer Louisiana, Claiborne Parrish.
The day before the hunt I went to the rifle range to learn how to handle and shoot the M1 carbine rifle, that I would be using. My friend's father put me on one of his deer stand and told me to be patient and to look at this dear path and wait, and to shoot only at a "BUCK". He mentioned that he had seen a nice four points buck in that area, and if I be very quiet and patient, I might get lucky and bag him.
After about an hour of being bitten by so many mosquitos, I almost got down from the stand, and call it a day. As I to put the safety on the rifle and proceed to leave the stand, a nice buck made the mistake of showing himself right on the deer path. After seen the deer I was so excited that I forgot to remove the safety from the rifle, squeezed the trigger, no round was discharged. I never knew what deer fever was until that moment. Removed the fafety from the rifle, took a good aim at the deer's vitals, squeezed the trigger again, the deer flinched went into the woods and disapeared out of sight.
After about ten minutes, my friend's father showed up, and I told him that I had shot at a buck as told. We waited about ten more minutes, then started looking around for the deer, it lay dead about 30 yards from were it had run into the woods. My friend's father took some of the deer blood rubbed it into my shirt, I had become a deer hunter right then and there. That deer was not the one that he had seen, and told me that this deer was bigger than the one he mentioned.
That is my story, and I am sticking to it.
avenger