My first deer was when I was 10 years old. (I won't say how long ago that was) I was setting against a tree in a saddle on a high ridge in the evening of opening day. I was watching a trail leading from a bedding area to an alfalfa field.
I had heard a thousand sounds I thought were deer but turned out to be birds or squirrels. It was nearly dark when I heard what had to be a deer coming toward me from the field. From the wrong direction. I got turned around and laid down prone and took the safety off my dads 8x57 Mauser. I saw legs long before I saw the deer. Finally it stepped clear of a tree and it had a huge rack. I had seen lot's of deer my dad and uncles had shot and it was a lot bigger than any they had shot.
At about 50 yards it stopped and I held the sights on the center of his chest and pulled the trigger. Snap! I had forgotten to put a shell in the chamber! He didn't run off. Instead he started coming closer. I worked the bolt real slowly, only making a click every 10 or 15 seconds. It took forever. I was shaking so badly I could hardly hold the rifle. I knew he could hear my heartbeat. By the time I got a round chambered it was so dark I could hardly see my sights and could only barely make out the buck. I fired at a white patch that I thought was his chest. Flame shot out the barrel and blinded me. In my excitement, I jumped up to run to him and tripped over him in a few steps. That buck had slowly crept up to within a few yards trying to figure out what that was making that strange clicking sound. I couldn't find a bullet hole anywhere in the dark so I ran the half mile home to get my dad. He looked quite a while using a flashlight before he found it. I had shot him right between the eyes while he was looking under a cedar bush. The bullet was lodged in the spine between his shoulder blades.
I still have that bullet. He weighed 157 pounds field dressed when we took him in to the check station the next evening I missed winning a new .30-30 for the heaviest deer by less than a pound. His rack is a perfect 12 point and hangs on my den wall. I'm still trying to top it.

It got in my blood early, and it's only gotten worse as the years have gone by.

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Ignorance is curable, but stupidity is terminal.

My first deer was when i was 15. Myself and a couple of buddies talked one of the parents into lending us his truck and off we went. No drivers license but 2 deer licenses. My father,a non hunter, thought it was a waste of time and money and that school would be a better use of our time. In those days,near our farm, we didn't see deer more than once or twice in a year.
We drove 5 miles to a large pasture and began walking in. No more than 15 minutes later we heard shots and soon a mulie doe came running over the hill. I had a .303 Lee Enfield sporter that had the original battle sights. One running shot at 80 yards and my hunt was over.
When walking back to get the truck the other hunter in our group spotted a nice 4x4 mulie buck in the bushes and filled his tag.It is likely this buck had been chasing the doe as we had walked right by this spot only minutes before
My father was amazed to see us drive into the yard at 9:30 with two deer in the back of the old grain truck.

My first was a yearling doe, 100 yards, about30* down, missed 4 times before holding low enough with a SMLE in 303 British, thank God for "dumb" deer.

My first deer was killed in 1982. I was hunting on private land border our family property. My dad put me up in treestand and walked about 80 yds to his stand. Before he could get up the tree, a 5 pt. buck walked by my stand at 15 paces. I shot him with a 20 ga. Savage single shot and Fed. 3" mag buckshot. Needless to say, he went down and stayed down. I even found the wad from the shell by the deer. What a way to start hunting.

November 24, 1964, 98K Mauser 8 X 57, 159 grain Norma Round Nose ammunition, 125 yards, eight shots scattered around the pasture, about 3 of which actually hit the deer. 10 points, 19 1/2 inch spread, beautiful symmetry and still haven't killed many better. I was 13 years old and my Grandfather, who wasn't a hunter, was driving me around the Texas brush in his old green Ford truck (which, come to think of it, was a new green Ford truck at the time.)

Nov. of 1969 doe 40 yds 250 sav model 99 t 100gr win. sil. tips. well we ever forget the first one.

Lets see, I skipped school and hitched a ride out of town to a friends woods. After sitting around for a few hours I saw a buck sneaking down a fence line. I scoped him and pulled the trigger. Missed, buck runs. Fired again and heard a crazy ricochet sound like in the cowboy movies, the buck freezes as still as stone. Fired twice more and the buck falls. When we skinned him we found two holes in the chest and four holes in the neck. Two were brass pieces, one was a hunk of lead and the last hole was from a piece of metal that had penetrated to the vertebrae in the neck. We couldn't figure out what the shrapnel was from 'till I went back to where he fell. I had hit the barbed wire fence strands dead on and the bullet came apart and drove the fence metal into the neck. The piece that hit the bone was probably the reason he locked up like that. The buck was small in size but huge in memories. I saved the pieces and they are still duct taped to the skull plate.

I think Dad was almost as frustrated as I was by my inability to bag a deer. At the end of my third season with no joy there was a 2 day doe season. Dad put me in a maple tree at the corner of a fence row that faced an overgrown meadow. The upper part was a woodlot called the thicket by our family. He circled the thicket and entered on the opposite corner. While I was watching the cagy old buck slipping down the creek through the tall stuff, a doe and her yearling burst out of cover right under my feet. They were running hard, uphill, and the yearling lagged a bit. Using my best shotgunning form I swung ahead of the doe and touched off the old .32-20. The yearling stumbled and fell before they reached the next woodlot. It was about the size of my Granddads old Yellow Collie. I couln't have been happier if it had topped Boone & Crocket. That was 45 seasons ago.

Nov. 1969 Shooting a Remington M722 in .300 Savage. Dad bought it for me a couple years earlier, still have it and use it . Never ever will it be for sale.

I think I was 12. My uncle let me use his Marlin 30-30. It was my first deer hunt. Coues deer in S. AZ. My dad led me up a draw, and told me to sit on this rock in a saddle. About an hour after first light I hear light brush sounds from below. It was 2 does followed by a little spike. I actually managed to wait until they crossed the open saddle before I shot him at like maybe 40 yds. He went down, and started kicking, I raised up to shoot again, then remembered I had'nt chambered a new round. By the time I did and re-shouldered the rifle, (it was too long for me) he was still. I think it was 2 yrs before I got another one. That first one has always meant the most to me. My dad sure was proud of me. Sure wish I could have had it mounted.

Sarge: Like most of the guys responding here, I will never forget that first deer.

Like you, it was more years ago than I want to admit. However, I was 12 years old and that was the first year it was legal for me to get a deer tag here in California.

I was using a Remington Model 722 chambered for 244 Remington that my dad had given me for Christmas.

We went up high in the Sierra Nevada mountains to a spot my dad had hunted for a long time. The first morning at 9 AM I shot a really nice buck with three points on a side. I thought there was nothing to this deer hunting. Did I have a lot to learn!

I was giving my dad a bad time about not getting one while I had one hanging in camp. Well, the next morning he had to best me by killing a great 4 X 4 buck not a mile from where I got mine.

I am happy to say I still have that rifle, I still hunt with my dad, and we are going back to that same spot in September to try again.

R F