Growing up on the farm, there was a Red Rider BB gun propped in the corner of the porch for as long as I can remember. It was used to target practice on cans and occasionally stalk a bird sitting on the electrical wires running to the barn and other out buildings. As soon as I turned 12, I took and passed the Nebraska Hunter Safety Exam. I still recall falling for the distracter answer for sighting in a rifle. I answered you should adjust high and to the right if your shooting high and to the right. Of course, making such an adjustment would result in you shooting even higher and further to the right.

Having passed Hunter Safety, I now could carry a 20 gauge shotgun for bird hunting and use a .22 caliber rifle when hunting rabbits and squirrels. Basically, I just had more to carry as I walked along fence lines and waterways. Whenever, some game was flushed from hiding I was the first to hear it and last one to see the target and either another hunter had made the shot, or the game was out of range before I could get my gun in shooting position. I did manage to bag a pheasant and a quail plus a couple of rabbits and squirrels, but the wildlife on the family farm did not have much to worry about from me

In fact, my favorite deer hunting memory occurred when I was around eight, before I was old enough to carry a deer rifle. My Dad allowed me to tag along on a hunting trip to a distance relative ranch in the sandhills of western Nebraska. We got to bed down in sleeping bags in an old cabin without heat. My job was to walk in the heavy brush between the actual hunters to flush out a deer. In one dried up river I was constantly bending over to retrieve my hunter orange cap off the ground as about every third step an unseen branch would knock it off my head. I must have been searching for my hat when a huge whitetail doe almost ran me over. Dad asked, “Did you see that huge doe you scared out?” I am certain he joked something like be sure to make it a buck next time.

It would be 47 years in the future, before I harvested my first deer. Pictured below is the whitetail doe I bagged, and ironically I did not see it either. You can read about the technique and technology used during this successful deer hunt or all hunting post to learn about blind hunting.

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