My first deer was a doe taken on the last day of Wisconsin's gun season with a borrowed friends Marlin lever gun. That whole week of Thanksgiving was absolutely frigid-cold, snow. I remember how quiet it was in the darkness of morning (while thinking how crazy I was for leaving the warmth of the cabin) and hearing the echoes of gunshots as darkness gave way to morning.
After a week of seeing deer flying around at crazy speeds and long distances with little to no shot opportunities in the frigid cold, my stamina on stand had about reached it's apex when a small doe came sneaking down a trail behind me at about 60 yards. I didn't even think about it.
In one fluid motion, I pivoted around in my stand and put the sights behind her front shoulder and squeezed the trigger. She dropped on the spot as my shot echoed throughout the woods.
I quickly shimmied down the stand and cautiously approached the splayed doe and rubbed my hand across the back of her neck and thinking she was a little smaller than I would have liked yet I was elated. My older brother found me kneeling down with the last of my field dressing duties completed (a bit more bloodied than I ought to have been from sheer inexperience and exuberance I spose) and quickly read my mind and put me at immediate ease saying, "Congratulations Stevie! She'll eat just fine." He clasped my outstretched, bloodied hand.
Boy, I felt like I had just scaled a mountain and was surprised that for the first time that whole week, I was no longer cold!
