The boy, about 10 years old, occupied the front seat of the school bus, wide eyed and wishing the driver would put the petal to the metal so he could make it home quicker, he had big plans for the evening. But the driver, also owner of the local country grocery, knew the roads well in very rural Red River County in northeast Texas. This was way back in 1960 and pot holes and occasional deep sand drifts was the norm and he had many years of safely transporting kids to and from school under his belt; slow and steady was his mantra.
After a bumpy fifteen minute ride that seemed an eternity to the youngster, the bus came to a stop at the boy’s front gate and he hopped off and made a mad dash up the gravel drive and grabbed a cold sweet potato his mother left on the stove for a quick snack, the boy loved sweet potatoes and he could eat one on the run while he rushed to water his little flock of laying hens and feed his horse a coffee can full of Horse and Mule feed. He was on a mission...it was November 16 and the opener of deer season!
A few days before, the boy and his dad loaded up in the old ’50 International pickup and drove into town to the courthouse where he purchased his deer ‘permit’ as the license was called back in the day. The youngster didn’t own a deer rifle but for the past couple years; he had been shooting squirrel, rabbit and quail when he caught one on the ground with the bolt action .410 shotgun his uncle had given him.
He had recently purchased five rifled slugs for his little shotgun and ‘sighted it in’ by shooting center of a five-gallon bucket placed in front of the dam of the half-acre pond on the small farm. He was only about 25 yards from the bucket for his sight in session but he figured that was far enough; he would be hunting a thick patch of woods behind the house and surely the big buck he hoped for would offer a good close shot.
The boy’s optimism and confidence was soaring on that day long ago but his experience hunting deer was sorely lacking. He had only seen a few wild deer in his short lifetime but he had a burning desire to learn more about them. Spirits were very high on that crisp fall afternoon 65 years ago.
Deer were precious few back in those days. Oh, there were some experienced deer hunters in the county, mostly WWII veterans that set up a tent camp each year and always managed to put a buck or two on the meat pole. The boy remembers their camp well and the day his brother-in-law took him there for a midday visit. As they pulled up in their ‘hunting car’, a '56 Ford Crown Victoria sedan, the boy saw two giant bucks field dressed and hanging from the meat pole. The hunters were preparing lunch at camp and invited their guest to join them. The boy still remembers dining on that meal of chicken-fried venison backstrap and boiled potatoes with plenty of butter!
To this day, this visit to a sure 'nuff deer camp is engrained in the now 75-year-old hunter’s brain. He remembers every detail with minute focus, everything from the smell of the cookfire to the red and black Woolrich jackets worn by all the hunters. In the boy’s eyes, these guys held the keys of knowledge to something that he just had to learn about and become proficient doing. The boy wanted desperately to learn everything there is to know about deer and deer hunting.
Those early ‘back forty’ hunts were the training ground for a lifetime of pursuing whitetail deer. Nary a deer was spotted on those hunts but that did little to diminish the boy’s desire to hunt. It was several years before the young hunter had the opportunity to harvest a deer on his uncle’s 80 acres not far from home. He remembers vividly hearing that young spike buck snort back in the brush. The boy didn’t know it at the time, but the inquisitive little buck that walked into the sights of his Marlin 30-30 had 'winded' him and in the thick cover, came in close in efforts to locate the origin of the foreign odor his sensitive nostrils had detected.
At about 40 yards, the broadside shot was easy even for the young hunter that had become pretty proficient with iron sights but this was his first time to ever draw a bead on a big-game animal. Luckily the shot happened fast and he didn’t have time to get nervous, that happened after he walked up to his harvested buck. To him the little buck was a monster and as he began the field-dressing chore, he had to stop to let his nerves and his knife hand settle down.
The buck was young and tasty and supplied many meals for the boy and his family. This is some of the first venison the family had eaten and he remembers his mother being surprised at how tender the backstrap steaks were! This occurred way back in ’65 and was the first of many, many deer put on the meat pole through the years.
About this time the boy began spending a week each fall with Poppa Dinkins, actually no blood kin but a dear family friend that owned a big ranch and woodland in southeast Texas. The boy’s family would drop him off at the bus station in Dallas with his rifle in a case and he would make the long bus ride down to south Texas. Looking back the boy, now a veteran of many years in the deer woods, could only imagine what might happen if someone entering a public place with a rifle these days.
Back then it seemed as natural as carrying a suitcase and only prompted questions from other hunters as to where the boy was heading to hunt.
Poppa was 86 years old back in 1965 when the boy first began visiting and hunting with him. The boy did the math and learned that Poppa was born back in 1879 when things were really wild in south Texas. He had 37 whitetail buck mounts adorning the walls of his old ranch house and the boy spent a great deal of time in the evenings studying them closely. In retrospect, none of the bucks were giants, most probably scored about 130 BC inches but at that stage of the boy’s deer hunting career, they were giants.
Poppa had shot most of them with the old 10 gauge double Damascus barrel shotgun that hung over the fireplace. Poppa was a slightly built man but tough as nails. Just before he turned 90, he was gored by a buck in a chute as his ranch foreman was attempting to doctor a wound. The buck had become entangled in a wire fence and had some bad cuts to which they were applying antibiotic. Poppa survived the wound to the stomach and lived another 6 years. The boy came to spend his week each fall with the veteran outdoorsman and rancher for the remainder of his long life.
The boy is now a very veteran hunter with about 65 opening days under his belt. His love for hunting has fueled his career as an outdoors writer. Filling his freezer with prime venison is no longer the challenge it was back in the old days. Deer are more than plentiful in his home state of Texas and across the majority of their range.
With several hunts in the plans beginning with the opener of bow season and through the end of February on managed ranches, meat for the freezer and possibly antlers for the wall is almost a given. May the tradition and lifestyle go on forever!
