It doesn't pay to be greedy

As a young man I lived to go hunting. I shot my first buck deer when I was 12 years old and by the time I had graduated from high school I had 104 deer by my count. Our area was loaded with deer and they were a real problem in the winter when they would come and do so much destruction to the local ranchers hay stacks. Back then there weren't nearly as many people to contend with either.

For some reason, pride I guess is the best one to use, I kept record of how many shots it took me to bring down my animal. My average was 1.5 shots per kill. I don't know if this is a good average but I did not see very many animals suffer due to my poor shooting. Actually I feel fairly good about this average considering that the rifle I was using was an open sighted 30-30 carbine.

About being greedy though. I went to the mountain one particular day when it was cold, but so pretty. The snow was about waist deep in the powder so the climbing was not the easiest thing to do. As I was about half way up the mountain I spotted a large doe going up the mountain in front of me. With her were two yearlings that looked mighty tasty. As I got closer for a better shot I lay down in the snow to steady my hands since I was puffing like an old steam engine. I thought that the young doe looked the best so I shot at her and doggone it, I missed. She took off running while the other two just stood there and looked at me.

The young buck was not a clear shot so I pulled down on the older doe. Got her!!! She tumbled down the mountain a little bit and I went up to her to finish the job of cleaning the entrails and prepared to take her back down. As I was doing this the young buck came back to take a look and stupid me, I shot him too. I finished my work on the large animal, gave her a mighty shove down the mountain and proceeded to go to the buck. When I finished my work with him I dragged him down to where the old doe had landed and prepared to take them both home.

I noticed that something did not look right with the old doe as she lay there but the snow had covered her somewhat and I could not tell immediately what was wrong. To my surprise I found the young doe, that one I had shot at and missed, lying right on top of her. It was dead as could be. I looked very carefully but could not find any bullet holes in her. Darndest thing I have ever seen.

This is where the greedy part comes in. When one is trying to maneuver in waist deep powder snow, even when going down a mountain, it is extremely hard going. Throw in three deer on top of that and you have the makings for exhaustive work. When I got the animals home I took particular care in skinning the young doe to see where it had been shot. There were no bullet holes in her anywhere. She must have died from fright is the only thing I can think of.

As a follow-up to my story when I would go hunting I would only take 5 bullets with me. I figured if I was such a poor shot that I could not do better than that then I should not be hunting at all. I had a friend that believed in spraying the mountain with bullets with the hope that an animal would run into one of them. That is not good marksmanship, that is stupidity.

There might be some who will read this story and think me cruel to animals. If you could have ssen the winter kill these deer suffered in those mountains you would know what cruelty to animals really is. We used every bit of the meat and was grateful to have it. As I have mentioned in a story before I don't hunt anymore. I love to go to the woods and mountains now and see the animals up close and personal.