Охотник из США рассказывает о первом улове и истории развития своей охотничьей усадьбы

My first deer-hunting season started in the mid-1960s. I was away at college, and my mother had been writing me about a buck she was seeing quite often on her way to work every day. It was actually on my uncle’s land and I knew it pretty well from having trapped on it. When I came home from college break, a friend and I planned to put this buck on the meat pole. We were supposed to meet on the road next to this field and go from there. My buddy didn’t show up on time and I got impatient and took off on my own. Not too far into my sneak around the brush, I kicked the buck from his bed and was able to bring him down with one shot. After dressing him out, he was hauled out to my parents’ station wagon, which I had borrowed for the morning hunt. Struggling, I got him into the back of the vehicle. Not a big deer, only a spike horn, but my first of many. About that time, my buddy showed up and asked where I thought that buck was. I pointed to the back of the vehicle and said, “Right over there,” with a big smile on my face. He looked at me kind of funny and slipped over to the car and started looking around. “In the back of the car,” I said, “You were late, so I went after him myself!” After that I did a little deer hunting in my travels in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland but was only so-so successful. When I came home from ‘Nam in 1970, the pheasant hunting, which had been my greatest love, had just about dried up. I took up waterfowl hunting seriously and put more effort into the deer chasing. I traveled to the Southern Tier each season as the deer numbers were higher down there than around my home area. Dad and I hunted quite successfully on state land near Belfast, but eventually I got friendly with a farmer adjacent to that state land and got permission to hunt his 300 acres. In fact, he eventually let my Dad and I use a small cabin he had on the back side of his property. We were quite successful each year and then a seven-acre plot in the middle of that farm, which wasn’t his, was put up for sale. I bought it and put a used camping trailer on it. Eventually I put a nice cabin up, put a big pond in, and added another 55 acres to it. There were many years of successful deer hunting down there along with many summer adventures.