Me with bloody hands and "Babe" one of our horses packing a deer to camp.

I am not like Patrick McManus who had to make up a great story about his first year deer hunting. Like Pat my first deer hunt took place when I was 12 years old. Unlike Pat mine was very successful.

My family hunted mule deer in the Owyhee Mountains in southwest Idaho every year from 1946 until our parents were too old to manage the terrain. We were very successful, sometimes getting two deer each. Each year we ate venison for most of the year.

In October 1953 as my father and I were riding our horses up a valley two bucks jumped up out of the chaparral in front of us. We both dismounted and prepared to shoot. One of them with disdain for my marksmanship stopped part way up the hill and stood broadside to me. I pulled up my World War II Savage 30-06 and shot. Later that day he provided venison steak for me and my family.