For the past 62 years that I have been addicted to the fall woods and pursuit of whitetail deer many of the hunts, deer camps, harvests and awesome people I have had the privilege of spending time with blend into one very happy memory.
My deer hunting career began back in the fall of 1961 in very rural Red River County up in northeast Texas. We lived on a small farm in the northern part of the county and on rare occasion, we would see a deer on our property.
Deer numbers were just gaining a foothold in much of the state back then and the mere sighting of a buck in our neck of the woods was fodder for much talk around the pot-bellied stove at the Dimple Grocery. Each year, the local newspaper would print a few pictures of “gigantic” bucks that were harvested by luck hunters.
Back then, it was all about points. This was before the words mass or beam length was used to describe antlers. A 10 point, regardless of what we modern day deer hunters refer to as gross score, became the barometer for measuring antlers, was considered superior to a 6- or 8-point buck.
There occasionally were some really good bucks harvested back in those days but if we could go back and put a tape to the antlers, I’m guessing a true 140-class buck would have been an exception to the average. Regardless of the size of the antlers, any harvested buck was considered a trophy back before the boon years of deer hunting in Texas.
I remember my Dad driving me to the Red River County Courthouse back in the late 50s where he purchased my license. To the best of memory, the cost was $5 or a bit less. With the opener of deer season, I would be given a handful of .410 rifled slugs for my old Mossberg shotgun. Not exactly the ideal tool for successfully hunting deer but it was the gun I used for hunting squirrel, quail and rabbit and the only one I had.
As soon as I was off the school bus each day after school, I changed clothes, grabbed a piece of cornbread and maybe a sweet potato, grabbed my little shotgun and headed to what I called my deer woods. I would cross our back fence and hunt a big pin oak flat below a 10-acre lake on the land owned by a fellow from out of state.
My stand was a 5-gallon bucket setting one the edge of a thicket. I would see plenty of tracks that I thought were made by deer, in retrospect, I imagine many were made by hogs that our neighbors allowed to roam the woods in the fall to feed on acorns. Regardless, I was actually hunting deer, and I loved every minute of it.
While I do remember seeing a few deer crossing our back pasture, I know for a fact that I never saw a single deer, buck or doe, on these afternoon hunts. But, I was a deer hunter and loved every minute of just being out there.
Then, in the fall of 1961 when I was 11 years old, my brother in law, Billy Joplin ruined me for life. He and I loaded into his ’56 Ford Crown Victoria sedan, and he told me we were going to a ‘sure nuff’ deer camp. We drove a few miles north of our home and then pulled off a dirt road, then through a gap and on for a half mile or so.
We rounded a bend in the deeply rutted road and what I saw is as vivid in my mind today as it was well over a half-century ago. There was a big, green Army surplus tent and to the side of the tent was a pine pole tied horizontally between two trees. Upon this game pole hung two monster bucks. I was in awe. Around a table inside the tent were four guys playing cards during midday. A big pot of stew or chili hung high on a support over the campfire.
My brother-in-law introduced me to a couple of the Crook family members and their hunting buddies. These guys instantly became hunting gods to me, and I listened with great interest as a couple of the lucky ones described the manner in which they harvested their bucks. I was hooked.
I remember telling my brother-in-law that I was going to learn all about deer and become the best deer hunter in the world. Well, I’m still working on that, but this was the defining moment when something clicked in my hunting blood and I embarked on a lifelong endeavor that I enjoy more each year when the leaves begin to turn and the acorns fall.
Later that fall, Billy took me on my first real deer hunt. We were hunting a big ranch up in the northeast part of the county. In retrospect, my brother-in-law was also a novice deer hunter, but he had friends. One was James Wooten, a well-known backwoodsman in the county who is still talked about today, and the other veteran deer hunter was John Earl Hawley. These guys instantly became my deer hunting heroes.
On that first hunt, I was deposited into the lower limbs of a pine tree with my little shotgun. I didn’t see a deer during this first hunt but on the way out, Mr. Wooten said something like, “Just around the bend, I usually see a couple of does feeding on acorns, there might be a buck with them today, the rut is in full swing.” Sure enough, there was a buck and three does feeding under the little stand of oaks. The buck didn’t present a shot, but I had actually seen a wild buck deer. Fuel was added to the flame and I was more fired up than ever.
By the time I reached my teenage years, my folks would drive me to Dallas and put me on a Greyhound bus with my trusty Marlin .30-.30 in a soft case. I was bound for Houston and then on Waller to link up with Poppa Dinkins, who at age 83 (back in about 1964) was a veteran deer hunter who had used his old Damascus double barrel 10-gauge shotgun to harvest some fine bucks for the era.
In his living room hung 36 shoulder mounts of deer he had harvested. Granted, none of them would win any of today’s taxidermist contests, they looked more like the mounts you see on the old Western movies on saloon walls, but I thought they were magnificent, and I dearly wanted to harvest my first buck on Poppa’s 2,400-acre ranch in southeast Texas.
My first buck was a fat 6-pointer on Poppa’s ranch. Again, the memory is as vivid as though it occurred yesterday. I was in a wooden stand up in a red oak. This was before the day of commercial ladder or hanging stands; two-by-four steps were nailed to the oak. My Uncle was situated in a ground blind a few hundred yards away.
An hour or so after good light, I glanced to my left and saw a couple of does come trotting into the little opening in the woods. Both stopped and looked over their shoulders. Then, I saw a very tall-racked 8-pointer step into the stand of bluestem, his rack glistening in the morning sunlight. The does pushed on out of sight and the buck stopped squarely behind an oak, where he remained for a good minute.
Occasionally I could see his head and antlers appear but he remained mostly hidden behind the oak. I was using an old Stevens single shot 12-gauge loaded with double-00 buckshot. In my excitement I made a novice hunter’s error. I obviously should have waited until the buck moved from behind the tree and made the shot. I didn’t.
When the buck looked around the tree, I centered the bead on his head and jerked the trigger. He went down instantly, right in his tracks. I had killed my first buck … I thought. The instant my foot touched the ground, the buck jumped up and took off at full speed in the direction his does had departed.
My Uncle soon arrived at the scene, after hearing my shot and we scoured the area looking for blood. My Uncle found the tip of an antler within a few feet of where my big buck was standing. Obviously, one of the buckshot had hit the buck’s rack and stunned him for a few seconds. He was in very good health as I watched his tail disappear through the oaks.
Another lesson in buck hunting 101, always wait for a good broadside shot. Later that same fall, I connected with a fat 6-pointer on Poppa’s ranch. I remembered to wait for a standing broadside shot and put my first buck on the meat pole.
From back in the day until the present, there have been many changes in the whitetail deer herd in Texas and the way we hunters pursue them. Beginning in the early 70s, whitetail numbers exploded in areas of the state where they had previously been sparse. In the mid-70s, Al Brothers and Murphey Ray co-wrote the book “Producing Quality Whitetails” which brought to light the fact that given the chance to mature and with the right genetics and food, whitetail bucks had the potential to produce trophy size antlers.
Wildlife photographer and writer Jerry Smith began getting photos of mature bucks printed in national magazines and the rest, as they say, is history.
Yes, there have been many changes in deer hunting since I was a whippersnapper armed with a slug loaded .410 in Red River County, but it’s all positive. Deer are plentiful and opportunities to hunt them abound. May our sport go on forever.
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