October 22 was the opening day of the Deer Hunt this year. Russell drew out for the hunt for the first time this year so he has been really excited for the hunt all year. He headed for the hills bright and early Saturday morning with my dad, Clay, Clint and Justin to shoot him a deer. Here is Russell to tell you all about his first hunting experience:
It was a fun hunt that started out crappy. We left Clay's house at 7am and got to Utah mountain by 7:30am. Everyone was getting ready and unloading their four wheelers and I went to get mine off the trailer and the worst feeling came over me. I realized that I was a big idiot who remembered his deer tag but forgot the four wheeler key to help get the deer. I called Tiffany and she graciously met me half way with the key. About a mile from where the trucks were parked I saw four does and a two point go up the mountain. The only problem was I had my rifle but my ammo was in the four wheeler. The only gun I had was my 9mm, I was really tempted to shoot it, but I did not. I got going back to my four wheeler and put the key in and tried to start it and it was dead. At this point I was not getting any happier. I am glad that I have a father-in-law who has everything in his truck for these moments. I pulled the jumper cables out and jumped it and got it going. Finally, I was off and running to play catch up. I put my gun on the gun holders that I have on the four wheeler. To put a cherry on top of all the bad luck that has gone on this morning, we went down a trail that dipped down and put the wheelers at quite a side angle and I was paying attention to the road more than the rifle on the rack in front. All I saw was a tree limb hit the front of the four wheeler and hit my rifle. The rifle flipped out of the rack and flew around to the left side and went under the wheeler. I was not happy at this point. I looked back and my father-in-law was just shaking his head and laughing at the humor that I was bringing to the trip. I kept telling myself what a great day it was and what a wonderful first deer hunt. 
Well my luck did turn around. We were riding for about 2 hours when Clay spotted a deer in the brush to our left. I looked up and noticed it was a buck. I pulled out my binoculars and saw that it was a two point. Clay noticed that Braden had gone up the road and could not get back in time so he asked if I wanted it. I said, "I would love too." I did not care about how big the antlers were or how big the spread was, I just wanted the meat and the experience of shooting my first buck. I took aim, it was about 70 yards out and all I was able to see was his neck and head. So I aim just a little lower from the neck and fired. Down it went, I got it. Yes I shot it that far with open sights. What can I say it is my grandpa Farnsworth's lucky deer hunting gun. From then on I was known as Iron Sights. I had to go down into a wash and back up it to get to where I shot it. When I got to the deer, it was dead right there (DRT); a beautiful kill shot through the lungs. I rolled it over and it bled out all over and it sounded like a sucking chest wound. I saw the antler for the first time and I thought, "Holy cow, I shot Bambi's little brother." As you can tell from the pictures above, it was a tiny buck. The antlers barely made it over the top of the ears. We were all laughing when we saw it for the first time. The real party started after we shot it. I had never gutted a deer nor had I seen one done before. Clay, Clint and Terry gave me a quick lesson on what to do and what not to do. It was very interesting, by the time I got to pulling out the stomach it was triple the size of the normal stomach. After we finished gutting it, we found a tree to hang it in until we got back to take it out. All in all it was a great size deer regardless of the size of the antlers. I was in it for how much meat the deer had on it. The rest of the trip I was the dogger or the person who walked up in front or to the side of the hunters to help push the deer out of the trees. I had a great time with them and am looking to many more hunts with them. Here is another picture of my trophy buck:
Well my luck did turn around. We were riding for about 2 hours when Clay spotted a deer in the brush to our left. I looked up and noticed it was a buck. I pulled out my binoculars and saw that it was a two point. Clay noticed that Braden had gone up the road and could not get back in time so he asked if I wanted it. I said, "I would love too." I did not care about how big the antlers were or how big the spread was, I just wanted the meat and the experience of shooting my first buck. I took aim, it was about 70 yards out and all I was able to see was his neck and head. So I aim just a little lower from the neck and fired. Down it went, I got it. Yes I shot it that far with open sights. What can I say it is my grandpa Farnsworth's lucky deer hunting gun. From then on I was known as Iron Sights. I had to go down into a wash and back up it to get to where I shot it. When I got to the deer, it was dead right there (DRT); a beautiful kill shot through the lungs. I rolled it over and it bled out all over and it sounded like a sucking chest wound. I saw the antler for the first time and I thought, "Holy cow, I shot Bambi's little brother." As you can tell from the pictures above, it was a tiny buck. The antlers barely made it over the top of the ears. We were all laughing when we saw it for the first time. The real party started after we shot it. I had never gutted a deer nor had I seen one done before. Clay, Clint and Terry gave me a quick lesson on what to do and what not to do. It was very interesting, by the time I got to pulling out the stomach it was triple the size of the normal stomach. After we finished gutting it, we found a tree to hang it in until we got back to take it out. All in all it was a great size deer regardless of the size of the antlers. I was in it for how much meat the deer had on it. The rest of the trip I was the dogger or the person who walked up in front or to the side of the hunters to help push the deer out of the trees. I had a great time with them and am looking to many more hunts with them. Here is another picture of my trophy buck:While Russell was out hunting, Emily, Colby, my mom, and I watched the Dixie College Homecoming parade.
They threw so much candy in this parade that Emily came home with a whole grocery bag full! What a great start to her Halloween treats! I love that I took the above picture right at the right time so that it looks like the Tootsie Pop is standing up! Emily loves parades and especially loves gathering candy. I loved the fact that all of the older Dixie College graduating classes wrote on all of their floats "Rebels forever!" or "Long live the Rebels!" I will always consider myself a Dixie Rebel not a Dixie Storm or whatever the heck their name is now...Any way back to the deer... Russell called my at about 11 am to tell me he got a deer. I thought he was joking but he wasn't. So now we have to go buy a freezer or something to put all the deer meat in.
We let the deer hang from Saturday to Monday in my dad's garage. On Monday, Russell went and got it and brought it home to butcher.
Seriously I thought Emily would have nightmares if she saw the deer but she was actually really interested in it. She wanted to know all about the deer and asked the funniest questions. Here is one of our conversations:As Russell was hanging the deer up by its legs to our basketball hoop:
Emily: "Dad don't hook him up like that, he will get hurt!"
Me: "It's okay Emily the deer is dead he can't feel anything."
Emily: "What happened to him?"
Me: "Dad shot him with a gun."
Emily: "WHY DAD!! Why did you shoot him?!"
Russell: "So we can eat him."
Emily: "We can't eat him, that'd be gross!"
We laughed and laughed. A little while later Emily noticed that the head of the deer was cut off so she asked, "Where is his face, Dad?" We laughed some more.
Clifford was also very interested in the deer. He kept pacing back and forth around Russell and the deer hoping something would drop so he could grab it and run off. I, on the other hand, was grateful to have Colby, which was my excuse for not being able to help cut up the meat (hee hee). We had probably every fly in the neighborhood at our house coming to see what that great smell was.
Russell and I didn't know how to butcher a deer so we turned to the greatest resource we could find, the Internet. We actually found a video on YouTube that told us step by step how to butcher a deer. After watching it for a while, Russell got motion sickness and just decided to cut it up into a bunch of chunks and call it good. So we did.
We got quite a bit of meat off of the deer. We filled about half of an ice chest with roasts and steaks. Yeah they might not be the most perfect cuts but they will work. We also made about 3 pounds of jerky. After cutting deer meat all day Monday, Russell thought that maybe getting a deer wasn't all its cracked up to be. So far we have only tried the jerky and it is really good. I hope the rest of the meat is good too and not too gamey.We had originally planned to go hunting with Russell on Tuesday but since he already got a deer on opening day, we just went 4-wheeling and had a picnic instead. And of course we wore our Orange.
We drove up to General Steam for our picnic and 4-wheeling. General Steam is near Veyo and Gunlock, in the mountains there. I had never been there before but it is a really nice place for 4-wheeling and especially for picnicking because of all the big trees. The weather was perfect for an autumn day. It was beautiful.
There are a lot of wild fruit trees growing at General Steam. There are apple trees, pear trees, grape vines, and raspberry bushes. We spent some time gathering and picking apples before my brothers, Clay and Clint, joined us for lunch. They had ridden their 4-wheelers from Gunlock while hunting. We cooked hot dogs and just relaxed under the shade of a huge pecan tree as we were entertained by Emily's chatter. It was great. After riding around on a few 4-wheeling trails, we headed home. The trip was a lot of fun.
We drove up to General Steam for our picnic and 4-wheeling. General Steam is near Veyo and Gunlock, in the mountains there. I had never been there before but it is a really nice place for 4-wheeling and especially for picnicking because of all the big trees. The weather was perfect for an autumn day. It was beautiful.
There are a lot of wild fruit trees growing at General Steam. There are apple trees, pear trees, grape vines, and raspberry bushes. We spent some time gathering and picking apples before my brothers, Clay and Clint, joined us for lunch. They had ridden their 4-wheelers from Gunlock while hunting. We cooked hot dogs and just relaxed under the shade of a huge pecan tree as we were entertained by Emily's chatter. It was great. After riding around on a few 4-wheeling trails, we headed home. The trip was a lot of fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment