"Putting one over" on my Dad!

Most folks thought that my Dad was a pretty serious person.  He didn't ever get really excited but he joked around and had a mischievous side to him.  Before Ralph and I got really hard and heavy into hunting, Dad had killed a nice buck.  It was an eight point and had a small but nicely-formed rack.  He mounted the horns and put them in his office, right beside the mounted Chipmunk and Screech Owl.  When we got old enough to hunt, Dad would tell us, "When you boys get a bigger buck than mine, I'll take those horns off the wall!"

Ralph killed his first deer on the "Coon Forty" down by the government pond.  I killed my first deer on the "Old Bob Thompson place", out of Dad's truck, while leaving the deer woods to go to school.  They were both smaller than Dad's buck.  In fact, mine only had one horn! We rocked on a few years with the horns still hanging on the wall.  Until 1982....

We were hunting in the East Woods or Big Woods, on the north side of Mount Prairie Hollow, near the Butyne Ranch, when Ralph killed a big 11 point on opening morning.  I shot at a 10 point that morning also but missed him.  I didn't get any more shots until Monday when I went hunting with Popo (this is what we called my Grandpa Elmer Riggs).  We had left the woods and were just driving the back roads "road hunting."  We pulled out on E Highway to start home and Popo spied a big buck and some does, across Gunter's Valley, heading toward the creek.  Well...Popo, being the excitable person he was, stops the truck in the middle of the highway, rolls the window down and shower's down on the old buck with a shot or two!!  The deer started makin' tracks for the creek and Popo proceeds to make a 17-point turn in the middle of the highway to get back to the creek so we can headem' off!  We made it to the creek, where it crossed the dirt road and started up it, wading water at times, to get to where the deer should cross.  When we were close, Popo said "I'll go up and see if I can see'em".  His head had no more than cleared the top of the bank when two does ran down into the creek and up on the other side...And right behind them was a huge buck!  I didn't even have a shell in the barrel!  When the buck started off the bank, I levered a shell into the barrel of my 30-30 and threw the gun to my shoulder.  By this time he was half-way across the creek and when I got a sight on him, he was just topping out on the opposite bank.  I cut drive at him and he fell like he had been pole-axed!  Popo and I climbed the bank and there he lay, with his nose under a field fence...a big 9-point buck!  Popo walked back and drove the truck up the field and we pulled the deer under the fence to gut it out...but...Popo was just too excited.  He couldn't wait to show off the deer that his grandson had killed!  "We don't have time to gut it now..."!!  We loaded it up, drove home to show it off to everybody and gutted it out at the house (which is a whole nuther story!!!)  However...Dad was not at home and wherever he was, we couldn't take the deer to show him.

We hung the deer up in the shop to cool and waited for Dad to get home.  I took his deer horns off the office wall and put them in the center of the kitchen table.  I was so hoping he wouldn't go into the shop when he got home...and he didn't.  He parked his truck and walked up to the back door, into the house and into the kitchen.  I was sitting at the table just waitin' for him!  When he saw his trophy antlers on the table, a big ole grin came on his face and he said "Well, what happened?"  I said "Come on down to the shop and I'll show ya!"

We went to the shop and examined the deer and I can tell you, he was some proud!  We took a few pictures and after awhile, when Ralph came out, proceeded to process the deer.  Ralph and I were real nice to Dad though and didn't rub it in too bad...We even allowed him to put his trophy antlers back on the wall!!