Team Sarcasm T's
Funny t-shirts with the right sarcastic attitude.
starting at only $9.90
Feature Article: When You Think...
Join Team Sarcasm!
As
a Team Sarcasm Member you get:
*Free Access to exclusive content.
*Free
Access to the JoeHumor archives.
*The "Joek"
of the Day by email.
*Notification when New Content is posted on the
site.
*Notification about New Products, Free Downloads, and Special Promotions.
*To be sarcastically cool.
Click here for more info or
to Join
Team Sarcasm!
Home Sarcasm Central HuntSpot Gold Diggers Contact About Joe Humor
Like what you read? Contribute to the sarcastic cause!
The Fat Blob Incident
Includes 20 Full Length Feature Articles plus Bonus Bits and Short Jokes
Available Free ONLY to Team Sarcasm Members
Feature Article
(I wrote this article a few years after I'd taken my first deer. It's been around 15 years since that first success now. But, it still stands as a special memory to me and, naturally, the story itself has taken on special meaning. I truly find it funny to look back on how I felt at the time and how I decided to write it up. Hopefully, you'll enjoy it as well.)
First Deer
Perhaps nothing remains more special in a hunter's mind than his first deer. Every detail of the situation can be remembered years later. In fact, sometimes even more details can be remembered years later than the day after.
As I stumbled down the trail in the dark on the day I was to take my first deer,
a hundred thoughts ran through my head. I remembered the previous season when I had taken to the woods eleven times, but had seen only one deer --- with no opportunity for a shot. I remembered vividly the frustrations that season had created. Then, I tried to remember all the things I had learned since, in hopes I would not feel that way again.Still, on this day when hunts for both deer and elk opened, I was nervous. I tried to control my feelings as I sat with my back up against a high stump facing the water hole I planned to watch. I buried my legs as much as possible in dirt and branches and then sat still, thinking about the numerous deer and elk tracks I’d seen while scouting the location.
Now, the idea of me sitting still is hard to conceive, but I did it. What happened next proved that. I had been sitting for only about 20 minutes when suddenly I heard some rustling down in the draw below. Instantly, my heart rate doubled. Rustling, I shouted inwardly, that's rustling! And I don't mean the theft of cattle either. Then it got louder and louder as whatever it was came up the draw toward the water. That's no deer, I thought to myself, its bigger than that. Perhaps an elk?
I kept motionless, letting my heart and other various organs do all the squirming inside me. Then, I saw it. At first, it was just a patch of brown hide barely visible through the trees.
"Shoot!" some renegade nerve cell inside me shouted.
"Shut up you stupid neuron," my brain replied, "We don't even know what part of the body we are looking at, let alone what the body belongs to."
It kept moving closer, however, right toward the water hole. Then, I saw more of it. Its big, I thought, that's no deer. It's big, and its coming right to where I knew it would. I'm going to get an elk! I'm going to get an elk!
Heart: bump, bump, bump, bump, bump.
Brain: I'm going to get an elk! I'm going to get an elk!
Renegade Neuron: Shoot! Shoot!
Brain: Shut up you stupid neuron!
The animal moved closer, but still would not completely reveal itself.
Heart, beating faster now: bump, bump, bump, bump, bump.
Brain: I'm going to get an elk! I'm going to get an elk!
Renegade Neuron: Shoot! Shoot!
Brain: Shut up you stupid neuron!
Another patch of brown hide appeared through the trees, confirming the animal was indeed too big to be a deer.
Heart: bump bump bump bump bump!
Brain, shouting inwardly: I'm going to get an elk! I'm going to get an elk!
Renegade Neuron: Shoot! Shoot!
Brain, still shouting: Shut up you stupid neuron!
Only another few steps, and the animal would finally come out into the open.
Heart, racing wildly: bu-bump bu-bump bu-bump.
Brain, scrambling in excitement: I'm going to elk get! I'm go to gek telk!
Renegade Neuron: Shoot!!!
Brain, screaching: Up shut you upid sneuron!
Closer. Closer.
Heart: bu-bum-bump!!
Brain: I'gk! Imelk!
Renegade Neuron: Shoooooot!!!
Brain: Stup nup nid neuron!!!
Then it hit me. What if its a cow?! It's only legal to shoot bull elk. No, No! It has to be a bull. Then, that magical moment that all hunters dream of happened.
I saw antlers.
It had antlers.
IT HAD ANTLERS! ANTLERS! ANTLERS! ANTLERS! IT HAD ANTLERS! IT HAD ANTLERS! IT HAD SCOOPED ANTLERS! IT HAD...
Scooped antlers?
Then, at that moment, it stepped fully out into the open, and was a moose.
A moose? But... a... I want... it... moose? AHHHHHHH!!!
Anyway, had I a moose tag, I could have shot it. It stood only 30 yards away for about 5 minutes while it drank. I just sat there, watched it, and enjoyed it, but it still wouldn't turn into an elk no matter what I did.
Eventually, it left, making just as much noise as it did while approaching, and I sat there saying over and over in my mind, 'A moose, I saw a moose.' Oh well, I may not have been hunting moose, but seeing one up close like that was cool, really cool.
About an hour and a half later, I was debating on how much longer to sit. I was supposed to meet the two friends I was hunting with at a designated spot by 9:30 if I hadn't seen anything. It was only about 8:15, but nothing else had come through besides my moose and I was getting a bit uncomfortable from being stationary.
However, for about the last 45 minutes, I kept hearing little sounds here and there around me. They were the kind of sounds that would almost get me excited, but then would turn out to be nothing. I tried to tie them together into the approach of an animal, but not even my imagination was able to do it as they were just not enough to go on. However, frustrated as I was, I decided to wax patient. I also waxed stiff, very stiff.
In fact, when I say stiff, I mean had a giant grizzly come running out of the trees 50 yards away, I might have gotten one leg straightened out before it killed me. For that matter, had a tree sloth come lumbering out of the forest 50 yards away, I might have gotten one leg straightened out before it killed or rather bored me to death.
Heck, had an earthworm crawled from the earth 150 yards away, spent eons evolving into a species with some sort of teeth, claws, and predatory instincts, I might have gotten one leg straightened out before it killed me.
Then, suddenly, I heard another one of those sounds again and so I turned my head slowly toward where it came from. To my complete surprise, a deer was there. Not only was it there, but it was walking right down to the water hole!
Heart: bump, bump, bump, bump.
Brain: I'm going to get a deer!
Renegade Neuron: Shoot! Shoot!
"Oh will all of you shut up!" I shouted inwardly, at which time my heart threatened to quit and so I quickly apologized.
The deer, however, having apparently spent 45 minutes making little noises around the water hole, thought he was totally safe and finished walking carelessly up to the water. I slowly eased my rifle up to my shoulder and looked down the sight right at the tree between me and my deer.
"Why did you have to stop there?" I asked out loud.
"So you can't shoot me," the deer answered. When I realized I was hallucinating, I looked at the deer again. It was happily drinking, standing right there in front of me, no more than 30 yards away --- positioned directly behind a tree, of course. I could see its nose and the feature it was named for, that being a white tail, but nothing more.
I then decided to take a nap.
At some point during my nap, someone installed a phone in the stump I was leaning against, so I ordered pizza. The girl who delivered the pizza was cute and so I started dating her. Soon, we were engaged. Later, she broke the engagement because it bothered her that I kept talking in my sleep about a deer standing behind a tree. I then ate some more pizza, learned how to sex fruit flies, spent a year crafting violins in Vienna (each with the symbol of a deer standing behind a tree stamped on it), set off a confetti bomb in the New York Stock Exchange, walked through downtown Havana wearing only a pair of boxer shorts that said 'Cuban cigars suck' across the butt --- with a deer standing behind a tree silhouetted in the background, and then ate a big, big, bowl of French Vanilla ice cream.
Finally, my fantasy ended, the stream ran out of water for the year, and then, amazingly enough, I found myself sitting up against a stump, out in the middle of the woods, staring at a tree with a deer behind it.
I raised my rifle again as the deer finally quit drinking and stepped out from behind the tree. This time I knew things were going to be serious. It stopped momentarily, giving me a perfect broadside shot. Then it saw me, sort of anyway. It really had no idea what I was or if I was anything, but it turned to face me anyway. I, at this time no longer content to wait for another perfect broadside shot, sighted on the center of the front of his chest. The deer walked a step forward and looked straight at me. I looked momentarily into his dewy, brown, Bambi eyes and then did what I had been planning to do in this situation --- pull the trigger before I could think about how cute he was.
The deer fell, got up, did a quick circle, and fell again. I, in my experienced wisdom immediately thought, "Do I shoot it again?"
Now, only a first time deer hunter would shoot into the body of a motionless deer, however, so, of course, I didn't. Not because I wasn't a first time deer hunter, but because I tend to be a bit rebellious. I did think about it, though, and I did crank another cartridge into the chamber, which brings up something that I did not realize until about two weeks later. When I put that other cartridge into the chamber, I caught the empty one as it came out with the same hand. Now, think about that. The empty comes out when the bolt is brought back. Therefore, I had to push the bolt forward again and lock the bolt down before my hand could be free to catch anything. Try it someday, it's not easy. I would have said impossible, in fact, had I not done it. So obviously, I was a little excited at this point.
I then approached my first deer, being very careful not to let it out of my sight. Not that it was going anywhere, but still, I was nervous. As I approached, I was amazed. It was big. It was thick. It was no wonder I couldn't see my deer behind it.
As I stepped around the tree and looked at my deer, however, I realized something. In all the excitement of actually seeing a deer, and actually getting a shot at a deer, I failed to notice just how puny he really was. Later, however, when my two hunting buddies met me at the pick-up, I would.
I had cleaned my deer up a little after carrying him back, and had placed him in the bed of my pick-up under a tarp. Just then, my friends arrived.
"What did you get?" one of them asked, knowing something must have happened because I failed to meet them at the designated time and place.
"A deer," I said proudly, especially after seeing that neither of them had anything. They then walked up to the pick-up, looked in the back, and lifted a tarp to find a spare tire.
"Where is it?" one of them asked.
"Under this one," I answered, lifting the appropriate tarp this time.
"That's a deer?" the other said.
Anyway, he was a bit small, but his spikes were just about ready to break through the skin, and I can still say I shot a buck.
Well, like I said, sometimes even more details can be remembered years after a first deer is killed than the next day. Actually, it has only been four years since I took my first deer. This story might make an great book by the time I'm fifty.
Copyright © 2010 --- written by Joe Humor
Email "First Deer" To A Friend