My First Buck!

I had a great time this past weekend during the opening of rifle deer season here in Nebraska.  I went hunting bright and early Saturday morning with my hubby.  There's something so nice about sitting on a grassy hill with my husband, with no one around but us and the cows.  We had hoped there would be deer around too but there weren't.  Nevertheless, we sat there for 2 hours, whispering, watching, and finally shivering.  Once I started shivering enough we went back to my in-laws house for a nice breakfast followed by more hunting.

My father-in-law had originally said we weren't going to hunt all day, only in the morning and evening.  But of course, as soon as enough men got together in the house, suddenly everything changed and the plans were now to hunt all day.  This time I went out with my sister-in-law though.  We drove to a spot she thought would be good and as soon as we pulled up, there was a buck and a doe staring at us through the tall grass.  I kind of felt like we were interrupting something and maybe we should leave.  But I got over that feeling quickly and after much fumbling with the bullets and my gun, I finally got out of the truck and promptly scared the deer away.  They didn't go far though so we tracked them down.

In my haste to get a shot, I didn't get into a very good shooting position.  I just squatted down, lifted my gun up, looked through my scope and saw that I had a great opportunity.  I quickly cranked up the zoom on my scope, trained the gun on the deer's vitals and squeezed my trigger.  As soon as I pulled the trigger, I felt the gun throw my shoulder back in the most violent way I'd ever experienced.  Followed immediately by the scope hitting me in the face right above my eye!  I had scoped myself!  I couldn't believe it.  I looked at my sister-in-law and said, "Am I bleeding?"  "No," she said.  "Ok good.  Did I hit him?"  "Ya, I'm pretty sure you did," she said.  At which point we both squeaked and squealed with excitement like girls do when they're out hunting and one of them gets a buck.

Now let's skip to the good part and get to the pictures.  Here's my goofy picture taken immediately after finding the buck.

And here's my picture after going home and putting makeup on so I could look good in my picture with the deer.  I AM still a girl after all and looking good in pictures is always a priority!

A special thanks to my hubby for always making sure I have the best gun and ammunition available.  He hand loads all my bullets so they're exactly what I need for the situation.  And he taught me how to shoot, so without him, I wouldn't be enjoying this wonderful sport.  Nor would I be getting up at 5 a.m. in the freezing cold to go out and sit on a hill waiting for an animal to happen along!  But really, it's fun and I'm super excited to have taken my first buck!