You were very gracious giving the old man what was rightly your buck.
When I was in the 8th grade I had an old Interarms .270, it had an awful trigger. You would start the squeeze on Monday and it finally go off on Tuesday. I was hunting with a friends father and what I remember as a giant buck walked out I shot it and evidently creased the abdomen and most of his guts spilled out trailing behind him as he ran off.
He ran about a half of mile and made it to the neighbors property, unbeknownst to me the too property owners were in a feud. A few minutes later we heard a couple of shots, we called the land owner and he said he had killed the biggest 9pt he had ever seen. He said it was dragging its guts around but we couldn’t have it . This guy was a big celebrity in the deer hunting world in the 70’s, this was devastating to a kid in the 8th grade.
This guy actually opened a museum later and that bucks full body mount had a prominent place in this museum. I’m 61 now and still gets my blood boiling!
We usto hunt with a dog hunting club
The rules they went by the last person to shoot the deer was the rightful shooter
We used dogs so the deer would have been found eventually
It was good to put them down
Well there was a man that got in the club
Every time he found a deer that was hit all ready be shot and they became his deer as per the rules. Ok fine
Well I shot my if I would have killed it out right first deer I think I was 7 maybe i rember the gun a won 37 single 20 with a 2 3/4 chamber using #3 buck I think on the load
Well what we were told he drove up and the dogs were walking around not after the deer
He goes to a drain ditch and shoots down in the ditch gw shot the deer
Could have been alive
Any way it being seen actually got people to paying attention
It took a few years but he was Cought shooting a dead deer
Being a kid I was not around when anything was going on
But as they were getting ready to kick him out of the club he admitted to most of his deer were dead when he shot them
It wasn’t about the meat the club shared meat any one wanted meat every kill was shared if people want it
So it was the antlers or bragging for killing the. Bucks
Or was it jusfacation for him spending the money to be in the club
I don’t know
But I will say it worked out well
I missed that first deer
I as a adult liked to carry kids hunting
I hunted most of this season with my nephew I never bothered to load my rifle
I injoy whatching the kids get deer way more than me shooting another one
We had a big for fl one around this year my bro ask if it comes out are you going to let him shot it
Told him he better I didn’t bother taking my rifle out of the case
. At least Chadwick owned it when he wrote the story. I'll give him credit for that.
