The Story of the "Hole In The Butt" Buck. Growing up the 70s and early 80s, we didn't have many deer in Mississippi. My father liked hunting but really wasn't into it enough to teach me much. He preferred duck and goose hunting. So, it was pretty much up to my brother and me to teach ourselves. He was 6 years older than me, so kind of served as the incentive for me to go. We started out running rabbits with dogs, then got into still hunting deer. Anyway, I hunted for 6 years (just trying to figure it out myself) until I actually saw a deer to shoot. (Missed at 20 yards on an 8 pt being run by someone's dogs that just happened to come by me while still hunting.) Anyway, the next year my brother and I (I was 18 at the time, I think) decided to hunt the high ridges above a farm that was part of our "club." We spent an hour walking in, with him sitting down on one side of a ridge in thick cutover/thickets, and me going over the ridge and sitting in a hollow that led to a lake. I just happened to find a trail and figured I'd watch it. Really didn't know what I was doing other than thinking the trail looked to run in the general direction of a huge thicket on the side of the lake. Since it was afternoon, I thought I might catch one heading from the thicket to the open woods before dark to feed. So, I found a tree to sit under where I could see the end of the lake to my right and monitor the trail to my left. Factors such as wind, concealment, rut stages, etc were no where in my thinking at that point. Anyway, I sat, watching squirrels and at some point just quit paying attention to the noise they made because there was so much. As the afternoon woods began to darken, I remember looking to my left expecting to see squirrels playing, and instead saw a deer walking that trail about 40 yards out. He was highlighted against the top of the ridge and eventually stopped. I could tell he had horns, but that was all. I took a shot with my trusty Remington 742 WoodsMaster in 30-06, and off it ran. It ran downhill beside me at about 20 yards heading down to the hollow. I took 3 more quick shots and it just kept running. Finally, when it got to the bottom of the hollow it stopped, facing away. It then began walking. It looked to be about 70 - 80 yards out. All I could see was the white of its butt. Now, normally, the clip of a 742 holds 4 shells, but if you were a motivated (and super enthusiastic) hunter such as myself, once you racked a round in the chamber, you added another to the clip. So, I had 5 shots available, and I had just let 4 fly. I had one round left and needed to make it count. Off it went, headed towards the only thing I could see, a solid white patch with a little brown strip in the middle. And down he went. Woo hoo! My first buck! So, I went down and checked him out. A nice 3 pt, which back in those days, was a trophy in those parts. Anyway, my brother, who had heard me shoot 5 times, figured I was reenacting the gunfight at the OK corral. When I climbed over the ridge to holler for him, he was shocked I'd actually got one, then was not very excited about having to come over that ridge and help me drag that deer 3/4 of a mile back to the truck. But we did and his mood changed as we got closer to the truck (funny how that happens.) When we got home I immediately went in and told my Mom and Dad I had killed a deer. Neither one believed me, and had to be forced out the door to go see it. Then the celebration began. And the work. Handgrinding deer meat back then was a chore. Almost so much it made you rethink if you ever wanted to hunt again. So, that's the story of my most memorable hunt. The pic is below. And if you look closely, you can see the bullet hole in my trophy's butt. It was the only shot that connected with that deer.
and Kentucky would come stay with us for a week every year to hunt. They hunted on Land O Lakes Farms (butter).....I am going through that....to ask about what was your most memorable hunt....regardless of the outcome.
