You'd be doing your uncle proud just carrying his rifle in the feild, no matter what bullet you shoot.
I shot my first deer which was also my first buck with that rifle when I was 9 years old the first time he took me out on a track. He wasn't big but to me at that time that 6 point was the biggest bucks that ever walked the earth! Pretty sure it was to my uncle too, I don't know who was more excited me or him haha.
This might be a long post but I gotta tell it, I remember it like it just happened and I get goosebumps every time.
We lived on 350 acres the butted up against the very back end of thousands of acres of public land, more or less heaven on earth cause only the first maybe 400 hundred acres of that public ever got touched and that was waaaay south of us.
It just finished snowing a pretty wet snow a couple hours earlier and it was a few degrees above freezing. Everything about this tracking job was like God said "this boy is gonna shoot his first buck today" I'd been shootin uncle's gun all summer up to November, my whole family are giants and I was already the size of a 12 year old when I was 9.
We walked down our pond trail and seen the track goin across, luckily the deer decided to take a whizz as he crossed the trail. That's where I learned the first piece of information of distinguishing a buck from a doe from tracks. My uncle said "see how it's pissin as it's walking? That's a buck, does stop and squat in one spot"
He also said because the track wasn't melted on the edges at all he might as well be standing in it, he was just here. Bout 50 yards in he stopped and pawed up a little scrape and there was little pieces of wet snow on the leaves he kicked out of it. He told me he ain't far cause those little specs of snow would be melted within 20 minutes in this temperature.
The tracks were headed in a straight line at a fairly steady pace so we kept pace with him. Uncle told me if he's goin straight line this at a steady pace he knows where he's headed and why he's headed there. Said it was time to slow down though cause we cut a bunch hard maple a few years earlier for firewood about 200 yards ahead, he said we might catch him in the cut eatin the greens still pokin through the snow.
We got about 20 yards from the cut and my uncle told me to kneel down so we could scan it before we kept going, he weren't out there but he did stop to load up on dandelion leaves and grass before he got to the other side.
Here's where I learned another very interesting thing. My uncle handed me his gun and said he's gonna be just ahead somewhere close, he's gonna lay down and rest after he eats like that now it's time to creep and pick everything apart. Look ahead, pick 5 steps out and don't look at the ground again until you take those 5 step eyes up always. Don't look for the deer itself look for a off color, a straight line side to side instead of straight up and down, any shape out of the ordinary.
I listened to everything he told me, we made it maybe 75 yards and I seen a straight line side to side in a clump of beech trees. There he is! Little did I know my uncle already seen him 20 yards ago but he believed the best way to learn was trial and error, didn't matter if it was painful he wanted to make sure I listened to what he told me.
The buck was a whole 35 years away, layin down facing away from us, no idea we were there. As I'm causing a earthquake with buck fever my uncle whispers words of wisdom to me that I repeat to myself to this day.
"You see it's got horns now forget about them. Focus on gettin it down then get excited"
So I did, and it worked. Then he told me "in the back of his neck boy, he'll have no idea what happened he'll just go to sleep, that's easy shootin for you"
I put that Ivory bread on the center of his neck 4 inches below the back of his skull and let'er rip!
Where'd he go?! Uncle Sean I missed! How did I miss?! I don't buddy it happens to the best of us, better go over and check for blood though.
So after I pick my heart and stomach up off ground we walk over to check for blood. I GOT HIM!!! I turned around to my uncle and if his smile was any bigger it would have cracked his face and he says "I know you got him! I watched his head slam to the ground like sledgehammer! Told ya he'd just go to sleep!"
The buck was layin just barely on the far side of the little bump I shot him on, when I moved to the side to find a hole through the beech he was in all I could see was his neck and head. My uncle could see the rest of him but I couldn't, and for the worst 2 minutes of my life that effer let me think I missed!
I re-live that day all the time, aside from my kids being born that was the best day of my life. Also the luckiest day tracker my uncle and myself ever had. A total of maybe 500 yards from where we started to where we found him. Then there was half more than half the information I needed to know about tracking in that 500 yards to start me on my journey.
After my uncle hugged and congratulated me to the point I thought he was gonna crush me he told me; this isn't my gun anymore, it's yours now, I just need to borrow it till my days are done.
When he got really sick just before he went into the hospital he called me over to his chair and told me to come closer. "Go get your gun and take it home with you tonight, I don't got much time left or much to give in the will. That's why your gun wasn't in the will, ain't nobody gonna fight you for it"
