Post a pic of your first kill

S

schoolhousegrizz

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I was at my parents the other day and came across this picture. My first big game kill, I was 13. Hawkins 54 caliber muzzleloader November general season elk hunt 1994. It makes me smile. No range finders, no kuiu or sitka, no fancy optics, no gps, no OnX, no cell phone, no Crispi, zamberlan or kenetrek, no etc..... Looking back there was a ton of luck on my part, a lot of hard work for my dad, and no small miracle that I got an elk on that hunt.?
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I don’t have any pictures of my deer kills for probably the first 10 years of hunting. Just not something my family did. Of course there weren’t cameras in everybody’s pockets like now. My first was in 94 as well. Would be great if I had a photo but it just wasn’t what my dad and grandad did.

Nice bull.
 
No picture of my first. But I have the image as fresh in my mind’s eye as it was the evening it happen.

Red Deer River, Buffalo, Alberta. “Doe Day”. November 11, 1961. Left camp alone, to walk down by the river. A doe with her fawn where standing 60 +/- yards away, on a prairie hillside, 200 yard from camp. Fawn was about three feet above the doe. Aimed the ole 303 British Enfield at the front shoulder of the doe. Hit the fawn 3 inches below the left ear.

Thus began a life time of surprises, mishaps, historic wrecks, and an occasional acorn, none I’d trade for a three day weekend with any of Brad Pitt’s women.
 
OutdoorWriter said:
No photo of my first, which was an 18" spike whitetail from NY's Catskill Mts in 1959.

The only photo I still have of my first AZ buck is the little 2x2 from 1962 where it's hanging in a tree. The last one is my first significant kill from the mid-'60s on the east side of the North Kaibab.

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That’s a Paunsagunt buck ODW........ we always you ole boys was slipped down the hill an getting our deer!!!
 
Okay then....... now I know how it works......... see ya at Jacob’s Lake, I’ll be the one with the Utah plates and the mutton.........
 
White Plains, New York in 1966 with my bow. Bear Kodiak, cedar arrows, Bear razor head broadhead. In my history teacher's backyard apple orchard. Sure ate good!

And yes, that was BC (before cameras).
 
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We didn't take pictures in the olden days like this kids do now ! This isn't my first kill. But one when I was 15 or 16 years old. Old Bessy will like this one ! Still killin spikes after all these years. :) My mom this year got one of those new Polaroid cameras that develop the pictures right in front of your eyes. Well you had to stick it under your arm pit to keep it warm. We thought that was really cool. No going to the photo both in the grocery store parking lot ! My first branch antler bull was a five point when I was 14 or 15 . I have the bull hanging in my office but not sure if we ever took a in field photo. It was a late night .
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You're kidding, right?

No one carried cameras at all back 5.5 decades when I started big game hunting. We hunted for ourselves and not to impress others. I'm sure we didn't take pics until into the 70's and that's long after my first kill.... which so happens was a little buck with my bow in Utah.

Zeke
 
OutdoorWriter said:
No photo of my first, which was an 18" spike whitetail from NY's Catskill Mts in 1959.

The only photo I still have of my first AZ buck is the little 2x2 from 1962 where it's hanging in a tree. The last one is my first significant kill from the mid-'60s on the east side of the North Kaibab.
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Hey ODW?

Were Them Winter Time Boots Necessary that Day in the lower Pic?:D

Red Flannel Shirt Days!


OutdoorWriter said:
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elkassassin said:
Hey ODW?

Were Them Winter Time Boots Necessary that Day in the lower Pic?:D

Red Flannel Shirt Days!
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Yes on the boots. In that photo I'm way down off the hill, almost to the Houserock buffalo ranch. Farther up where we were camped, there was about 4 inches of snow on the ground & even more higher up. I actually had to chain up for the mud when we left because my truck was only 2-wheel drive.

This is at camp after much of the snow had melted and made a muddy mess of the Eastside Game Trail. My truck is the one with big cabover on it behind me.

The 1946 Jeep was in the midst of one of my restoration projects. The small buck was my grandpa's who is standing to the left in front of the tent.

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OutdoorWriter said:
Yes on the boots. In that photo I'm way down off the hill, almost to the Houserock buffalo ranch. Farther up where we were camped, there was about 4 inches of snow on the ground & even more higher up. I actually had to chain up for the mud when we left because my truck was only 2-wheel drive.

This is at camp after much of the snow had melted and made a muddy mess of the Eastside Game Trail. My truck is the one with big cabover on it behind me.

The 1946 Jeep was in the midst of one of my restoration projects. The small buck was my grandpa's who is standing to the left in front of the tent.

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Love those family photos ODW. I’d give about anything I own to have known either of my grandfathers. They were both men of amazing character and carved a living out of the short gras prairie back when the West was still wild and unbroken.
 
OutdoorWriter said:
Yes on the boots. In that photo I'm way down off the hill, almost to the Houserock buffalo ranch. Farther up where we were camped, there was about 4 inches of snow on the ground & even more higher up. I actually had to chain up for the mud when we left because my truck was only 2-wheel drive.

This is at camp after much of the snow had melted and made a muddy mess of the Eastside Game Trail. My truck is the one with big cabover on it behind me.

The 1946 Jeep was in the midst of one of my restoration projects. The small buck was my grandpa's who is standing to the left in front of the tent.

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I’d give about anything I own to have known either of my grandfathers. Love these old family photos.
 
I could draw a picture of my first buck, but that's as close to a camera shot as I have. Most of us were after meat in those days. Times have changed!
 
2lumpy said:
I’d give about anything I own to have known either of my grandfathers. Love these old family photos.
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Pop was already in his 70s when that photo was taken. He moved to AZ in 1960 & lived with my parents. We moved to AZ six months later. That's when we started hunting together for about the next 17-18 years -- until we moved to Colo. & he moved back to NJ for a spell to be with my dying grandmother (long story :ROFLMAO:). He finally got back to AZ after she passed, but he was already 94 & didn't last long.

At my dad's Gulf station, another one of his deer, this one circa early '60s from the Kaibab. The other one laying there is a 4X4 of mine. That's my old 1954 Ford panel truck. I swapped out the straight six for a 292 V-8.

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OutdoorWriter said:
Pop was already in his 70s when that photo was taken. He moved to AZ in 1960 & lived with my parents. We moved to AZ six months later. That's when we started hunting together for about the next 17-18 years -- until we moved to Colo. & he moved back to NJ for a spell to be with my dying grandmother (long story :ROFLMAO:). He finally got back to AZ after she passed, but he was already 94 & didn't last long.

At my dad's Gulf station, another one of his deer, this one circa early '60s from the Kaibab. The other one laying there is a 4X4 of mine. That's my old 1954 Ford panel truck. I swapped out the straight six for a 292 V-8.

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Great photo’s and memories ODW.

Your family where clearly an independent and adventurous lot.

Anytime I see folks pack up and move from one end of the country to another tells me a lot about them. Some folks prefer the benefits of staying put, making their fortunes and memories close to the cradle. I see nothing wrong with that, in anyway. Others look to the horizon and what could be, in a new environment, new culture and different opportunity. Some out of wanderlust some out of circumstance. Either bring great change and great reward.

Isn’t it great we live in a place and a time when either choice are still available ( this Covid Nonsense not withstanding).

Was grandfather a hunter back east or did he start hunting after he came to Arizona?
 
2lumpy said:
Great photo’s and memories ODW.

Your family where clearly an independent and adventurous lot.

Anytime I see folks pack up and move from one end of the country to another tells me a lot about them. Some folks prefer the benefits of staying put, making their fortunes and memories close to the cradle. I see nothing wrong with that, in anyway. Others look to the horizon and what could be, in a new environment, new culture and different opportunity. Some out of wanderlust some out of circumstance. Either bring great change and great reward.

Isn’t it great we live in a place and a time when either choice are still available ( this Covid Nonsense not withstanding).

Was grandfather a hunter back east or did he start hunting after he came to Arizona?
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Yes, he hunted. Mostly for small game, but sometimes deer with shotguns in NJ & NY state. I was never part it of it back there. Other than a BB gun, my 1st was a Marlin semi-auto .22 in 1957 & then a Marlin 336, which I bought in AZ the summer of 1959 when my parents moved to Phx. My future wife & I drove out with them & then flew back to NJ so I could finish the next semester. I killed the NY spike with it that fall.

After the war, my dad went to work on the assembly line for Ford in a in Edgewater, NJ. When they moved to a new plant in Mahwah, he also moved & later became a foreman. He eventually became tired of driving in snow, thus prompting his search for warmer climes. On another earlier vacation West in 1957, we visited San Jose, Las Vegas & Phoenix as possible relocation spots. They picked AZ, where he bought a Flying A station & stayed in that business for about 25 yrs. I became his mechanic for a decade & eventually got to doing everything except rebuilding auto trannies. .

Pop was his right arm. He would open the station everyday at 6 a.m. but the rest of us wouldn't arrive until later. He had a big following of customers, especially the ladies. If he missed a day, many of the gas customers would ask, "Where's Pop today?"
 
OutdoorWriter said:
Yes, he hunted. Mostly for small game, but sometimes deer with shotguns in NJ & NY state. I was never part it of it back there. Other than a BB gun, my 1st was a Marlin semi-auto .22 in 1957 & then a Marlin 336, which I bought in AZ the summer of 1959 when my parents moved to Phx. My future wife & I drove out with them & then flew back to NJ so I could finish the next semester. I killed the NY spike with it that fall.

After the war, my dad went to work on the assembly line for Ford in a in Edgewater, NJ. When they moved to a new plant in Mahwah, he also moved & later became a foreman. He eventually became tired of driving in snow, thus prompting his search for warmer climes. On another earlier vacation West in 1957, we visited San Jose, Las Vegas & Phoenix as possible relocation spots. They picked AZ, where he bought a Flying A station & stayed in that business for about 25 yrs. I became his mechanic for a decade & eventually got to doing everything except rebuilding auto trannies. .

Pop was his right arm. He would open the station everyday at 6 a.m. but the rest of us wouldn't arrive until later. He had a big following of customers, especially the ladies. If he missed a day, many of the gas customers would ask, "Where's Pop today?"
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Thanks for sharing. It’s a family history worth preserving.

So......... are you “Pops”, to the grandchild and grandchildren, in the family now.

I’m Papa to my three youngest. The three year old throw a royal fit to buy Papa at Walgreens this week. It’s great being Pops or Papa......

Carry on gentlemen, didn’t mean to interprupt your thread.

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Nah, my kids call me dad or sometimes even Tony, & my granddaughter uses plain ol' grandpa. When my mom died a few years back at 93, she took "Anthony" to the grave with her. ;)
 
BIGJOHNT said:
I found a old picture of Bessy hunting! ?? It’s Actually my great great grandpa and my great grandpa above him and his two brothers. I wonder how hard it was to get a picture like that back then.
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That is ancient before all the fancy equip but there was more game. Imagine if they could have used today's equip just for one season back then.
 
BIGJOHNT said:
Here is the complete picture. Look at all of the lever action rifles and not a scope. My grandpa told me they lived off the fish the caught in the summer and the deer in the winter. I have a picture of him and his dad in a boat fish
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The original flat brimmers
 
Im surprised bigwiffy or SS didn't post a pic of an empty 12 pack. :sneaky:

This is not my first kill, but maybe my second. I was on a muley trip with my neighbor in Northern NM. We were walking down a hill with him a bit to my right. I looked over as he was stepping over a branch...but it wasn't a branch, it was this timber rattler. I yelled and he jumped back.

The snake raised it's head and I shot it a couple inches under the head The 130gr silvertip or hp, I don't remember, from my dad's old .30/30 exited, entered the body again and exited again. At the second exit hole, a cottontail popped out. If the weather had not been cold and if the snake had not just eaten, myneighbor might have been bit.

The snake had 15 rattlers; and right at 6'1" long.

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My first. 1984 Washington Mule Deer 4x4 w/brow tines. Killed about 9 am on a Sunday. He was with 3 does. Two days before, he was running with a 3x3 with a similar frame. I had a 90 yard shot as the deer were moving single file down a ridge on a timbered hillside. One shot with my 30-06 stopped him in his tracks. My dad brother and I tagged out on that hunt.

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twopointdn said:
The year was 1991, wrangler jeans, hand me down hunter orange, old high top basketball shoes, and shooting my grandpa’s 30-30 Marlin. I still remember every detail of that opening morning. As you pointed out, times have sure changed fast in the hunting industry.

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I killed my first buck the same year with a 303 savage. It was a spike, so you out did me. I was so excited. Looks like you were too.
 

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