Tough Start

My long awaited first buck.

I’m not a betting man but if I was, I would happily put money down on the fact that a majority of hunters get into hunting through a family member in some way or another. Most likely your father was the one that brought you into the sport and his father did the same for him. It’s something that is usually pretty heavily rooted in families, it really is a way of living and upbringing. For me things were a bit different, yeah, my Father hunted but that was before I was around. I always knew growing up that he use to hunt a lot but never heard any stories. He used to go duck hunting on the Delaware river in a canoe with his cousin before work started. Or he would try and hunt deer in the woods of Maine in his college days. He recently got back into hunting which has been nice because now that I’m older I’m able to appreciate spending time hunting with my Father. I grew up in a divorced house and spend a majority of the time at my mother’s house. Both of my parents were very outdoorsy people everything we did was outdoor and nature oriented. My mother never hunted and ran for the most part an anti- gun household. When I was a young kid I can clearly remember myself laying on the family room floor of my mom’s house on our old box tv watching the outdoor network, and sportsman channel. I specifically remember for some reason the African hunts, maybe it was seeing wild animals in places like nowhere I have ever seen before, but I was mesmerized by it all. I always loved animals and was infatuated by nature and the animals in their natural habitat.  As humans there’s something about hunting always seemed so natural like it’s in your DNA. As a kid it seemed like such an adventure watching the hunts on tv, and knowing my dad use to be a hunter made it that much cooler.

Fast forward probably 10 years to when I was starting high school, 2 of my close friends and ice hockey and lacrosse teammates decided we should go and take our hunter safety course. These 2 guys are Austin and Doug, still to this day two of my best friends and ended up being two of my groomsmen at my wedding. Now I travel all over the country hunting with Austin and he is still my Primary hunting partner. Whether its setting stands and prepping for archery season or our pre work duck hunts I still hunt with him constantly. Doug comes out hunting every once in a while, when he has time off, but he wasn’t as interested in it as Austin and I were.  Anyway, we were a little late to the game, we were a bunch of freshmen in high school sitting in a classroom full of a bunch of 11-year-old with their dads. We felt a bit silly but hey it should be an easy 2 days of class if it set up for kids that young.  We passed our test and off we were started our hunting season right in the middle of the rut. Not that we even knew what the rut was at that point.

The 3 of us really had no idea what we were doing and with no real guidance or mentors we had to figure everything our ourselves for the bottom up. I had one lesson from my dad right when I started getting into hunting, he pulled over on the side of the road and we walked into the woods. We went on a walk and he pointed out to me how to find deer trails, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. When hunting for us started Austin was attempting to hunt with his uncle’s compound bow from the 70s and I was hunting with my dad’s right-handed recurve and I’m a lefty. We decided to start with hunting whitetail deer in Southeast Pennsylvania. Deer are everywhere and easily the most popular thing to hunt in our area so we figured that would be a good starting point.

With hopes and dreams of a monster buck in our sights we set out for the local woods in Austin’s parents neighborhood.  This plot of woods was surrounded by houses not even 100 yards away, we had no idea what we were doing was wrong at the time. just a bunch of young dumb kids being kids. We sat at the base of trees thinking a big buck would walk right up to us close enough that we could basically jump on its back…  boy where we wrong. We didn’t see much of anything at the beginning I know I didn’t see a single deer my first year I was just excited to be out “hunting” in the woods. Looking back its pretty funny how clueless the two of us were some of the things we did made absolutely no sense. One time I went out and set up against a bush by the entrance of a deer trail sitting in a camo sleeping bag with my righty recurve. I probably made so much noise rustling around trying to get comfortable in that sleeping bag that half the houses in that neighborhood could hear me.

It didn’t take us very long at all to upgrade our bows and start practicing constantly. The next season came around and we were a bit more prepared and we learned a few things by then. We got ourselves each a tree stand figured out how to set up in position of deer traffic. This was the first year I actually saw deer hunting, we both didn’t have doe tags and what we picked up from talking to old timers is you don’t shoot does because then you won’t have bucks. Witch to a bunch of young kids that didn’t know anything sounded great but as we soon found out through learning and research that was very far from the truth. I never ended up seeing a buck that season but through observing all the does I picked up a lot of knowledge for the next season. Granted I still just about had no idea what I was doing for a while when I would get bored in the stand, I would walk around the woods like Rambo thinking that I would be able to sneak up and kill a deer on foot. Those deer probably smelt of saw me creeping around the woods before I even knocked my bow.

The biggest factor to both Austin and I really learning about deer was spending time in the woods watching deer do what they do. How they travel, what they eat, how they are for the most part patternable. We also learned things for us to improve on to make ourselves more successful like scent controlee, how to move with deer Infront of you, how to walk around and get in and out of the woods, little things like that that make a huge difference. That time observing was the biggest factor to us learning and growing as hunters. Well of course I also learned to knock it off with pretending I’m Rambo and stay in the stand. The reason the two of us only hunted with bows is because the bow season in Pennsylvania was from mid-September to the end of January. While the gun season was only ten days, plus where we lived there weren’t to many places to gun hunt so it just made sense to bow hunt. Austin ended up shooting a doe, and I did the same unfortunately as archery goes I didn’t make the best shot and I was unable to recover my deer. So, I learned quick the hard side to hunting. Things were starting to come together, and we were learning more and more as the seasons came and went.

The next year I moved out to Montana for college where I made friends with a few kids who took me hunting and taught me how to spot and stalk deer, which was a completely different game to me. I’m not going to lie I liked it so much better than sitting in the freezing cold stand waiting all day. This was the first time I was hunting with a gun as well I ended up harvesting my first deer that year which was a 3x4 mule deer on the last day, last 15 minutes of the season. Funny enough Austin in Western PA shot his first buck the day before I shot my first deer, and Doug back in school in Southeast PA shot his first deer the day after I shot mine.

My first buck didn’t come easy at all. I hunted hard for 3 years in PA with no success. Then when I moved to Montana and started hunting out there as much as I could. The first day of the season we went up to Great Falls MT where my friends grew up to hunt their spots, they grew up going to. I had never hunted out west or with a rifle before, so I had no idea what I was getting into. First day we got in the truck driving on to public and wouldn’t you know it a 4x4 muley running well more like hopping by right on the side of the road. we pulled over ran out of the car into the field and lined up the shot. Well after my bad hit on my doe back home I wanted to make sure I made the perfect shot, but he was running away. Well, I was to slow because before I could even see this buck through the scope BOOM. I look up from my scope to see what just happened and the deer is nowhere to be seen. Matt Dropped the buck in its tracks we walked up to it and surprisingly it still was completely covered in velvet. I guess Montana hunting isn’t too bad the day has barely started, and we already have a beautiful 4x4 buck down, and in velvet doesn’t get much better than that. Great way to kick off my Montana hunting career.

Well, the rest of that season was a lot of the same story, but I wasn’t about to give up all of my friend group got their bucks but me. Luckily, they stuck with me, and we kept after it all season long. We went back to Bozeman and the Livingston area and hunted around there for the rest of the season. My friend Kelsey would let me hunt at her grandparent’s ranch, that ranch is still one of my favorite places I have ever been. Well, the season was getting close to the end I had one clean miss on a small buck mid-way through the season and it was almost time for me to head home for thanksgiving and then the season was over for me. The day before I had to fly back home for Thanksgiving break, I decided let’s give this one last chance. Moral was beyond low; I couldn’t believe I was going to go 4 years without shooting a deer. Back home Austin had just shot his first buck in the PA rifle season a basket rack 5 point with his grandpa’s iron sight rifle.

I hiked all over Kelsey’s family ranch trying to find this buck that day as the night winded to an end and I decided let’s head back to the truck before it gets dark out. This property was full of steep rolling hills and mountains in the background. Everything had a light coat of snow on it and the sun was just starting to set turning the sky into a beautiful mixture of blue and orange sunset. Right as we start to crest the top of the final hill before we get to the truck at the flat on top of the hill a Muley buck with two does is standing there with no idea we were there. My head was down in disappointment thinking another season with no buck. Matt grabs me by the shoulder pulls me down to the ground and whispers BUCK. I look up and at maybe 70 yards there stands a buck broadside right in front of me. I pull up the rifle line up my sights shaking like a leaf on a tree and BOOM, what nothing happened he’s just standing there. Matt whispers to me shoot again you missed the buck has no idea what just happened. Of course, had to get one last jab at me this season really push it to the last minute. BOOM the buck took one hop and down he went. I couldn’t believe it, there was only 15 minutes of shooting light left and I just shot my first buck. He was no monster, but I couldn’t be happier with my 3x4 muley. A lot of hard work and determination went into getting him. Also, I couldn’t complain about the pack out all I had to do was slide him down the hill into the back of the truck. I was as happy as could be.

For Austin and I, hunting really started taking off for the both of us the part of Pennsylvania he was in wasn’t great for deer hunting so he started going duck and goose hunting with his friend’s witch later passed on to teaching me. I spent my College days hunting Montana chasing everything on my tag. Later on, when Austin and I traveled to Alaska to hunt I returned the favor and taught him how to spot and stalk. Now we both probably spend 75% of our year either hunting or getting ready for hunting season. We aren’t experts but we keep learning more and more every season no matter if its turkey hunting, waterfowl, big game there is always more to learn, and I will never know everything. Whether its reading, experiences, videos, talking to other people in the industry we are always trying to continue learning so we can become the best hunters possible.