It was 5 years before my next deer hunt and moving to Georgia in late 1974, with the move, my new job and getting settled in, there was little opportunity to hunt much, only a couple of excursions to try and find a few quail, was about all. By the opening of quail season in 1975, I had met new hunting buddies and was immersed in the sport. However, on some of the quail haunts, we would regularly see a lot of doe and even a few, nice bucks.

But by the mid point of deer season in 1977, the pressure was really getting on me to take up deer hunting! Brad, a junior in high school, had just arrowed his first deer, a doe and Randy, 11 years old, and I had applied for, but had not been drawn, for the Georgia Game and Fish, Special Youth Hunt, held on Sapelo, Island.

Hunting season in 1978 rolled around, Randy and I applied for, and were drawn for the Sapelo Island hunt. Brad’s high school football team was rolling toward, what we hoped for was, a State championship. My quail hunting got off to a roaring start, see my October 29, 2009 post, “[A Fight To The Finish]” and I had killed my first buck (in hand to hand combat).

Two weeks after the deer incident, my neighbor and friend, Mark Greenberg and I, both had a day off and we decided that we’d go deer hunting, this would be my fifth deer hunt, but Mark was already very experienced. The week before we had helped Brad set up a tree-stand along a small creek in some real thick cover, outside of Stockbridge, an hours drive south of Atlanta. There was a well used deer trail that ran along beside the small, stream and Brad’s stand was within arrow distance.

Before sun up, Mark and I drove my Dodge Power Wagon, down to the hunting spot and walked in through the woods to Brad’s stand and I volunteered Mark to climb up the stand, while I walked a hundred yards down the creek. He was packing his .243 and I had my 12 Ga. shotgun, loaded with OO bucks. Something told me that this would be a “real” hunt!

By 8:00 AM we hadn’t seen a deer, I was day dreaming a little, and all of a sudden, across the creek, this big doe almost ran over me I thought, not even being able to get my shotgun up, she was heading up the creek at a lope toward Mark and Boom, his rifle exploded! There was all kind of thrashing around, then silence and Mark yelled out, “Got her!”

Taking his exclamation as the “all clear”, I ran down to him and the doe lay between us, shot through the heart. Holding the deer down while he field dressed it, he remarked, “This venison will taste really good!” Both of us got suitably bloodied and not washing the blood off until we dropped the doe off at a processor, got back home before noon.

This turned out to be a “real” deer hunt and I kinda’ liked it!