Deer Hunting with Dad
Written By: Heathe Pendergraft, Fall Obsession Field Staff
When I was a kid, firearm deer season, or "gun season" as we did and still call it in my family, was the greatest 9 days of the year. I didn't bow hunt at the time and my dad, so gun season was our deer season.
As an awkward and hyper kid who didn't really fit in anywhere, and who had an amazing knack for upsetting adults, gun season was the one time of year I actually felt like one of the guys... mostly. We'd get up super early and Mom would make us a breakfast of biscuits and gravy and bacon and then we'd hit the timber.
After we'd pull up in the truck, we'd get out and get our stuff together and make sure we had our shells and snacks, and dad would always tell me something along the lines of "Head down this holler for a while until you see a point where you can see three other hollers come together. Sit on the red oak stump and watch the head where those hollers come together. I'll come get you later." He might as well have been speaking Swahili to me in those days because I never could figure out the spot. I was never happy with the place I found to sit, which was likely exacerbated by my inability to sit still for more than 5 minutes at a time in the best of circumstances.
Inevitably I'd end up back at the truck within a few hours to hit the bag full of Vienna Sausages, Hi-Ho crackers, and cookies that were supposed to be our lunch. When dad would come back to the truck at lunch time, he'd be less than pleased to find that I'd already been there and snacking no less. He'd tell me how I can't ever expect to get a deer sitting in the truck. But he always made me feel like I belonged during deer season. Even when I would never see a deer or make up an obvious lie to say I did when we'd get together with other hunters that night to relive the days hunts.
I clearly remember once in my second year of hunting; we got back to the truck that night and met up with some of his buddies on the way home. One of them had shot a buck and they were tracking it in the dark. We stood there on the ridge and visited with them, everyone telling the story of their days hunt. It came around to me and everyone had at least seen deer that day except me (re: hyper, couldn't sit still). I nonchalantly threw out that I had a button buck in the open sights of my 20 gauge slug gun at probably 75 to 100 yards but passed to wait for a bigger one. I didn't know what a button buck was at the time, just that one of my friends had killed his first deer the year before and it was a button buck. I thought this made me sound like a seasoned hunter who was holding out for a trophy. We got in the truck and dad, as gently and nicely as he could being the rough kind of guy he was, told me that I should work on my lying if I'm gonna tell deer stories and explained why. That moment was 35 years ago and I still remember it as clear today as I did when it happened.
While that may not sound like a necessarily "good memory", for me it's still one of the greatest. I wasn't just real sure as a kid that my dad liked me very much. He was different than me, had a much different and rougher upbringing than me, and as I stated earlier, I had a knack for upsetting and alienating every adult I knew, including my dad who I now know loved (and still does) me very much. We were at odds a lot and I seemingly went out of my way to make that chasm wider every day. For everything that he was into, I was into the opposite. For him to handle my obvious lie with compassion means so much to me today looking back.
My greatest opening day memory was just a few years later. I had hunted for 6 years without a deer to my credit and my belief was that I may never kill one. This day I had once again been told where to go sit, and once again, I was getting restless. It was 9:00 am and I was arguing with myself about going back to the truck again. It was cold and windy, and I was sitting on a stump in the woods feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was just about to give in and head to the truck when I heard footsteps and saw movement out of the corner of my right eye. I looked over and there, in all his glory standing about 75 yards down the ridge, was a beautiful buck. I got the worst case of buck fever in my life and, long story short, I missed him. He ran over the ridge and about 30 seconds later I heard “BOOM”. I didn’t know who was down in the holler, but I was positive that they had shot my buck.
I hollered and asked if he got him and to my surprise it was dad. He said he had got her. I walked over and he had shot the doe that my buck was pushing. I was understandably disappointed and embarrassed that I had missed again, and he had gotten yet another deer, but he encouraged me and then we started to clean his doe. After we finished with the doe, we were standing there side by side, talking about the hunt and why I had missed, when suddenly there was a sound like a stampede. We looked to the west and 4 deer busted out of the brush at the front of the holler: 3 doe and a buck chasing them hard. I pulled up and shot at the first doe. Missed. I cranked another round in, like Chuck Conners in the old The Rifleman TV show, and shot again. Missed. I finally settled in on the buck’s shoulder and, after a quick whispered prayer, I squeezed the trigger. I swear that buck fell, head over heels, in super slow motion. I saw his head start to dip and I immediately started hollering and jumping up and down. I grabbed my Ol’ Daddy and started hugging him and crying. He hugged me back and told me “good job”. We went over and looked at the buck laying there in the leaves. He had 11 points and a lot of mass. He scored 134 1/8 points. He was worth the wait.
These hunts were in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Since then we have shared opening day of gun season every year except 2020 when Covid had us both down for the count. My dad is my best friend next to my wife, and he is still my hero. I still get excited every year as gun season rolls around, even though I've been hunting for 2 months by that point, because I get another year of hunting with my Ol' Daddy. By my count, this year is our 36th opening day to hunt together, and I'm as excited as I was on our first hunt!