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In the United States, deer are one of the most popular animals that hunters pursue, with an estimated 35 to 36 million deer in our 50 states.

4.63 million include 436,000 whitetail and 6,565 mule deer. There’s definitely strength in numbers, and the number of deer hunters in the United States reflects this notion. As a percentage of the population, deer hunters make up 3.35% of this country’s vast melting pot.

I became a deer hunter late in life, as when I was in Watertown, I never had the opportunity to deer hunt, with the only deer I ever saw happened when I walked corn fields with my dad and my brother after pheasants.

I was so wired up about fishing and hunting upland game birds, I couldn’t find the time to scout and hunt deer.

My first attempt at deer hunting was on one of the Indian reservations in Nebraska, I was filming the hunt, and was surprised to see how many people hunted them, as about every place I went to hunt, was full of hunter orange clad hunters.

Most of my deer hunting involved climbing up a tree to get to a deer stand, which gave me an excellent opportunity to observe long distances and not so patiently, hoping a shooter, (heavy antlered) deer would pass through my shooting lanes.

For the first hour or two, I saw a lot of small antlered deer, does and fawns, I could hear the bucks plowing through the timber, banging their antlered head against trees and brush, never seeing the deer that was making all the racket.

I hoped when one showed up, at a hundred to two hundred yards, as that was where I was comfortable at taking a shot.

My partner Larry Myhre and friend George Crossley were set up a couple of draws away, far enough away where we couldn’t see each other and where if one of us fired, giving us the direction that we needed to watch as if they missed, there was a pretty good chance that the deer was headed towards one of us.

All three of us had good deer rifles and scopes, including a 7mm, 243 and a 30-6 with each of us being confident at the distances we had zeroed our rifles.

We always had a game plan when we entered the woods as it was “O-Dark thirty” when we left our pickups and went to our stands.

Our plan included, passing up bucks under four-points, giving the smaller deer another year of growth.

Our first day was very slow, cold and windy where we passed on several young bucks that were hot on the trail of a receptive doe.

We were not going to shoot at just any deer, passing up the smaller deer, trying to balance the deer numbers, giving the deer another year of growth.

Late that afternoon, the wind had died and off to my right, I heard several buck grunts as the deer lip curled to pick up the scent.

The first deer was a smaller doe, that stopped to catch her breath, approximately seventy yards out.

In the trees in front of me, two bucks trying to claim ownership of the one hot doe that had passed by me earlier.

With all the racket of antlers crashing and deer grunts, there had to be a good buck in there, I scanned the location with my binoculars, hoping to see what size deer were thrashing about.

Unable to see them, I took aim where the first deer had come through, hoping to get a glance at the buck that was causing such a commotion in there.

I concentrated on the trail, with my rifle to my shoulder, quickly focused on that spot, when a smaller buck that seemed in a hurry, dashed across the opening, attempting to put as much distance from the other buck and itself.

Fortunately for me, the larger buck paused for a second in the opening giving me an easy shot rifle zeroed in on, Before the buck moved an inch, I put a 7 mm bullet through its chest, with the buck spinning in a circle before smashing into the trees behind me.