by Kelly James
(Syracuse, NY)
I remember everyday I’ve spent in the woods as though it were yesterday. The memories are some of the best in my life, most likely because it was time dad and I got to be father and son.
He was in the Navy. His duties sometimes kept him away as I was growing up so I didn’t always get to spend as much time with him as I wanted to but that was okay. I understood he had responsibilities and I respected what he was doing for his family.
When I turned 16, I immediately enrolled in the deer hunter safety program. For years I had waited until I could join my dad in the woods so I could experience another part of who he was and see what he loved doing every fall.
When I told him I wanted to go hunting with him, we was very happy. He went to his gun cabinet and pull out a Model 99 .300 Savage and handed it to me. He said it had been his fathers and it was now mine. I was ready!
My first year of hunting was memorable in many ways.
Opening weekend hit right in the middle of High School football, so I was torn between that and going hunting.
Since I had waited for years, the decision to go hunting was easy to make.
During that October weekend, I saw several does but nothing I could shoot at but that didn’t matter. Being in camp, it was the stories that were told of the days events which led to stories of past hunts.
I watched and listened intently to my dad and his buddies relive the past as though it happened only yesterday.
When I got back to school that following Monday, my coaches made sure I knew how they thought of my decision.
I didn’t start varsity as a sophomore but that didn’t matter. Mondays were JV games and I didn’t play – at all and for the rest of the week, I ran – a lot! Everyday that week, I ran around the outside of the football field on average of 50 times – in pads. As I did – I was smiling.
After high school and two years of college, I decided to follow in dad’s footsteps and join the Navy. Four years had passed since I started hunting without any luck and at the age of 20, I headed off to boot camp.
Over the course of the next four years, I was overseas in Italy and then on deployment onboard the USS Saratoga during a nine month stint in the Med and Indian Ocean.
Upon our return to Mayport, dad and I made plans for the upcoming fall. That October, I drove 19 hours from Florida to NY so dad and I could pickup where we left off in our hunting adventures.
On opening weekend I was on what we called the pinnacle, a flat wooded plateau elevated 100 feet above the lower woods behind me and from where I stood, on the outside of a swampy area the deer traveled into and of all the time.
I found the tree I had sat behind years ago and took up my vigilant scanning for movement in every direction. It wasn’t long before a group of does began feeding on acorns that had fallen from the trees.
Since I was downwind, they never knew I was there. After some time, they moved off and the adrenaline ran its course and I settled down.
A short time later, I heard movement coming from the swamp at my 2 o’clock. Two deer came trotting out of the woods, both were bucks!
In the previous years and up until now, these were the first bucks I had seen while hunting. My heart immediately went into overdrive. As they ran further out of the swamp into the area where I stood, they slowed down and stopped. As luck would have it, the larger buck stopped directly behind a tree out of view looking in my direction. Since he couldn’t see me from where he stood, I brought my gun up and took aim where I thought he might step out and I waited.
For what seemed an eternity, he finally took a few steps out from the tree giving me a full frontal view. I could tell from his mannerism that he was ready to bolt so I slid the safety back, put the cross hairs on his chest and squeezed.
The first shot of my hunting life was made and all I could see was smoke. Not really knowing what to expect, the spot where the deer were was empty.
A few moments later, a small buck game screaming out of the swamp at my 10 o’clock in full stride and was gone in a flash. I jacked another shell into my lever action .300 Savage and slid the safety back. T
hen I heard a crackle over my radio – we were high tech. It was dad asking if it was me that shot.
I told him it was and he asked if I had gotten it … I honestly didn’t know.
With him on the radio I walked over to where the buck had stood and I found a good tuft of hair and a good blood trail. Since he was under the hill from me, it took dad only a few minutes to get where I stood.
Together we began to follow the trail. It wasn’t long before he pointed at the