It was Fall, 1994, just outside of Sierraville, California, near Bear Valley campground. The Zone was X7A and the season was only three weekends long. There were seven (7) guys in our group that year.
That first weekend, five of the seven in our group took deer. Myself and one other, Dale, walked away with nothing. I knew I couldn't hunt the second weekend because of my schedule, and neither could Dale. So we decided to come up closing weekend. We were going to continue to hunt the hill where all five bucks were taken that first weekend: we had come to jokingly call it "Five Buck Hill".
It's closing weekend. Dale and I got up long before daybreak and drove to Five Buck Hill. As we were driving up, we saw someone else turn up the hill. "Dangit!" we thought, "They better not be going up to that spot!" We followed to make sure they weren't going to Five Buck Hill, of course they were. They parked right in the spot we scoped out. Crap!! We set up a shortways away and watched the hill. The wind was fierce and cold that day. I spend most of the morning huddled between two rocks wishing I had never left my sleeping bag. After about 2 hours, the sun was coming up and we decided to find another spot because we were miserable.
We were heading down the hilll. We came round a bend, there was a steep drop-off and I was watching the road below, a little further down the hill. As if he was on a Sunday stroll, there he was, a 3x3 buck, followed by 2 does. "Stop, Dale, stop! I see a buck!" Dale stopped and I got out of the truck. I got my rifle ready, and started to take aim at the buck. Dale gets out of the truck, comes around and jumps right infront of my rifle saying, "Where's the buck?" Annoyed, I took my left hand, pushed him out of the way. "Damn it, Dale. Watch out!" I took aim and fired. He jumped, was he hit? He turned and starting right up the hill straight toward us. I could not believe my eyes! Dale shot a couple times, he missed. The buck was still coming toward us. I took careful aim and fired. He jumped, hunched his back and came down like a ton of bricks. Dead center chest. My first deer was down.
I cleaned and skinned him by myself. I only gagged twice .