My First Deer
When I was 7 or 8 I received
my first bow it was a small red bear archery set, I had the suction cup
models as a kid, but this one was the first with “ real wooden arrows”
. Dad was shooting a new Indian compound, the latest and greatest of its
time in 1980 something, we both shot and shot and shot at the hay bales
in the vacant lot, he hunted that year. The next year he bought himself
a Bear Whitetail 2 ( in my opinion a real killing machine), I was still
shooting the red bear.
We moved to Texas after dad retired from the Navy. He got a job with a
company called
E-Systems now Raytheon Company.
That Christmas I received my first “ real bow " a Pearson
Equalizer in black. It had
a 24 inch draw length and a draw weight of 20-40. This was a nice bow
for its time no doubt.
When I was 9 I had already come down with my Juvenile Rheumatoid arthritis.
Dad knew however I could enjoy archery even though I was unable to participate
in other sports that I used to. I practiced all that year and into
the next. By this time I was good enough to shoot milk caps most of the
time at 15 yards, I was shooting dads old cut off arrows, 2216 at that
time. I didn't have to spine arrows for bows. I didn't know about it, and
was ignorant to it, I was there for fun, and didn't really care and had
a simple single bar sight and a simple arrow rest ( TM hunter I think)
and I was shooting a finger tab. I had offers to kill my first
deer at many places but decided to go to my cousin Pete’s house and kill
one.
Pete was dying of bone cancer that had metastasized, that means it has
spread throughout
the body via his limbic
system and blood stream, and being a man of the outdoors he had always
wanted to bowhunt but at
this point it was not in his “stars” to do so. I guess in a way he
was
living his dream through
myself and wanted me to kill a deer with my bow and he wanted to
watch.
He was very ill, and was bedridden, we moved his bed to the front window
where I was
going to be hunting, my
stand was the sofa and my shooting window was the front door! We
waited for deer to appear
in the front yard, the first group of 5 or 6 consisted of all females,
I got
ready to shoot and took
my shot sitting on the arm of the sofa and shooting out the front door
in
style. I missed ,
15 yard shot, OOPS. The second group came in again they were all does and
fawns. I lined up on the
largest one without babies and took my shot. I made a good hit, double
lung, but wait, the
arrow was stuck inside her and had entered on the opposite side at which
I
had shot at, ( a testament
to a deer's’ speed) the deer had jumped the string and spun around
completely, I was shooting
Kolpin twister 135 broadheads on my cut off 2216’s , they did the job
real well and took the does’
life in about 60 yards with her going through one fence before dying
Pete and My father were as happy or happier than myself about this and
we all talked
about it all afterwards
and took pictures.
Pete died a few months later but I still remember this experience with
my cousin Pete and
Dad fondly it was my first
deer, and a right of passage in a way, as three dreams came true that
day in Johnson City TX in
the home of my cousin Pete.
Doug Felps. aka Turtle
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