Fiancée’s first hunt
Text and photos by Alan Davis

I thought that you might want to see a picture of my fiancée’s buck from November 2005. Her name is Callie White and this was her first year to hunt big game. She was not really interested in hunting until she met me. 

She drew a late season tag for an area near Cody. Due to our schedules, we could not hunt opening day but went out the first weekend. I have hunted this area before so I thought I knew where the deer would be. Without seeing a deer the first couple of hours, we went to my favorite spot. I soon spotted one of the biggest deer I have ever seen. Unfortunately, he was chasing a doe and heading into some extremely remote country. We never saw him again.

The rest of the day produced a few bucks but none of them was as big as the one who got away, the one my fiancée had nicknamed Griz.

We went out again the next weekend. Classing the spot where the big one had been, we could not find a deer. We moved a little ways away when I spotted some deer getting up and moving away. The glasses revealed a good buck in the back. I called on my deer call and he stopped to look back. He was a 28 to 29 inch four point. I told her to get ready to shoot but she replied that he was too far. He then ran over the hill and vanished.

Later that day we went into town to get gasoline and I had some mechanical problems with my Jeep. It is a good thing I had some tools. Still, our daughters Afton and Lucia—2 and 4 years old, thought that it was funny seeing gasoline spraying all over daddy from our broken hose.

After getting it fixed, we headed out. As we were reaching a good spot, I spotted another deer. We pulled over, got out and put the spotting scope on him. It revealed that he was a 25 in 4x5.
She replied that he was big enough, but we had to get a little closer. We crawled to a small hill while Afton and Lucia, watched from the Jeep. I used my call and the deer turned broadside. Callie was ready with her Browning BAR 30–06. She must have been looking at his horns because the first shot almost blew his right horn off, halfway up.
The impact knocked him to his knees but he got back up shaking his head. I told her to calm down and concentrate on making a good follow-up shot. All the times at the range paid off when she got him right behind the shoulder. He stumbled a few yards then fell over in a gully. After all the hollering and celebrating, we gathered up the kids and went to have a look.

He turned out to be just what she wanted, a beautiful, mature buck aged at seven or eight years old. We field dressed him and loaded him up for the long drive back to the camper. It was dark when we finally arrived. The next day we slept in and took some pictures of her with her first deer. If you look close, you can see the electrical tape helping hold on his horn.

I also harvested a nice buck from the same area in November 2004. Last year’s hunting edition had my picture with him.
If this is the way Callie starts out, she will soon surpass my 190 incher from the same area in 1999. Good luck this fall and thanks for the great pictures and stories in the Hunting Edition of the ADvertiser.

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