Deer Hunting, The Earliest Memories

The best memories of deer hunting are the earliest ones. You knew nothing about it from experience - you were 12 or 15 and hunted with a 12 or 20 gauge slug, or a 30-30.

You'd mostly heard stories from your Dad and your uncles and great uncles. About them and their hunts and Grandpa, too, who'd learned to hunt deer from the Indians who still lived on the homestead when he was young. Before they were called to the reservation. The Indians had no problem getting the deer they needed - my impression was that it was more outsmarting them, than hunting. Which just might be be defined as hunting.

The Indians knew where and what the deer ate, and where and when they slept and since that's about all that deer they do, it was simple. Get there a little ahead of time and watch and wait and then shoot.

Cousin( great uncle) Clifford taught me that deer feed downwind, thus utilizing the great sense advantage they have over us - sound and smell, primarily - smelling upwind, looking downwind and hearing all directions as they fed downwind.

Which helps us to get them and then eat them, which is the original reason for all this hunting. Our advantage is eyesight and reason. Theirs the nose and ears. The deer win most of the time.