Deer hunting adventures

I started deer hunting in 1958 when I was 16 years old. I went with a gentleman from Claymont who had permission to hunt some land near Smyrna, and I had my stepfather’s Remington Model 12 with a full choke. It was the same gun I used for rabbits and squirrels.

I set myself up behind some thick brush and my friend was about 20 yards away, also well concealed.

It was about an hour after sunup when I heard a shot close by and then I saw a spike buck running about 35 yards away from my position. I got off a shot, then the deer disappeared.

I was shaking all over when my friend came up to me and asked if I hit the deer. I said I didn’t know. We both went over to where I had last seen the animal and, lo and behold, there he was, dead as a door nail.

About that time another man came up and tried to claim the deer as his. My friend had gone back to his stand to get his knife, so I was sort of flustered by this guy trying to claim my deer. About then, my friend returned and asked the guy where he was hunting. When he said where he was, my friend asked if he had permission. He didn’t. When we examined the deer, it had a slug that entered the back of its head and was lodged under one antler. We all agreed it could not have run several hundred yards with a rifled slug in its brain.

I had my first deer on my first deer hunt. It would be many years before I got my next one.

I hunted public land in Delaware for a long time without result and then my grandparents moved to a farm in Laurel. The lady who owned the farm said I could hunt there and I could even bring my friends. I did so for quite a few years, but we never fired a shot.

Finally, my friend Mark Leggett invited me to hunt on leased land in Somerset County, Md., and I killed a deer every year I hunted there.

I invited my friend who shall remain nameless, but let’s say he is one of the most intelligent men I know and leave it at that.

On the morning of opening day, he dropped off his stepfather at his stand then parked his truck before walking to his stand. At the time he was eating an apple. Just as he was walking into the woods, he threw the keys to the truck into the underbrush and put the apple core into his pocket. He did realize what he had done and spent a good deal of the best hunting time crawling around on the ground among the briars and vines looking for his keys. By the time he found them, the thrill of the hunt had pretty much gone.

After the owner of this lease decided to sell off the timber, my unnamed friend found us a beautiful place, also in Maryland. Naturally, he included Mark and me in the original group.

On the first hunt we had there, it seemed there were deer everywhere. Mark was hunting in some very thick underbrush and when a deer popped up, he shot it. Almost immediately, it popped up again, so Mark shot it again. When he walked over, he found two dead deer. The Maryland limit is one deer a day. My unnamed friend had filled his tag without firing a shot.

I was hunting just down from my unnamed friend’s stepfather. I heard him shoot three times, then three times more. Then a deer came toward me from his direction. I knew Marvin was not the world’s best shot, but how could he miss a deer six times?

Anyway, I killed the deer and as I was dragging it out, I saw Marvin still in the tree stand where I had left him. I said, “Did you miss this deer six times?” “No,” he said, “only five,” pointing to a dead deer about 25 yards away.

When everyone was out of the woods, we had seven dead deer in need of field dressing. Mark had left early with is deer. Guess who was the only one who had ever field dressed a deer? It took until well after dark to do all seven, but I got it done. The we loaded all of them into my van and drove them to this tiny general store where we had to check them in. I thought the lady that ran the store was going to have a stroke when we began tossing deer out the back of my van.

It was a great hunt!