Here is my edited version of the story:
During the time of being a teenager, nearing the old age of seventeen, I had become a good deer hunter. I had gotten a deer every year since I first started hunting. I had been on a lot of trips with Dad, Harry, and some other guys. A family friend, named Tom Byrne, wanted to get a deer for winter eating. I was selected to go with him the coming Saturday. Tom lived in Boise, so I drove my old car to his place.
We took his car up the 8th Street Road to the top of the Boise front, where we would hunt. I knew there were deer down in the sagebrush breaks. The trip to the top was uneventful until we had to turn off the main road. The turn was sharp and steep. We should have gone on down the main road to a turnaround place so we could get a straight shot at it, but we did not think about that at the time. As we turned off, we slid a little, the car was leaning badly when we finally stopped sliding. I got out very carefully to not rock it anymore. I wanted to see what we had to do to keep it from rolling. The only thing to do was to keep going and hope we stayed upright. Tom thought I said to gun the car to get back on the road when I actually said to just creep very slowly. We did not roll but both top tires came off the ground. This scared the heck out of both of us to say the least. We were a long way from home at the time. After our nerves settled down, we took off down the ridge to find a deer.
There were lots of tracks, where deer had been crossing the ridge, in their wandering. We had walked quite far down the main ridge cutting through all the brush patches along the way. We went further down it than we had planned but when hunting, it does not seem so far. I dropped off the hill a short way to a draw with some small trees and tall brush when a two-point buck ran out in front of me. I had my 30-30 Model 94 rifle and had loaded it with some silver tip bullets. Someone had given me a box of them sometime back, so I thought I would try them. I missed the first shot because of surprise at him hiding in such scrimpy cover. The second shot caught him in the rib cage and through the heart. There was a small hole where it went in, but it exploded as it came out the other side. There was a hole you could put both fists in with no trouble at all. The buck made about four more bounds before he stopped and fell over backwards. He was dead on his feet before he fell. The exploding bullet had torn his heart to pieces along with tearing the large hole where it came out. I swore right then and there I would never use any more silver tip bullets. They do too much damage to the meat, and they do not have the knock down power of regular bullets. I used the rest of the box for target practice when I had the chance.
I was standing looking at the buck when Tom caught up with me. He had heard me shooting and was sure I must have killed something. We were amazed at the antlers he was sporting. One side was a normal two-point, but the other side of his head must have been injured while in velvet. The antler hung down the side of his face in a curl with the velvet still not off it. The buck could not rub it off as deformed as it was.
We dressed him out and pondered how to get him to the car. The car was parked about a mile up the ridge and it was all uphill. He was too large to pack whole and we were not thinking straight, or we would have cut him in two pieces, where each of us could handle a half. We had read about hunters packing their deer out on a pole between two guys and it sounded easy. We found a good stout pole, tied the buck’s legs together, and ran the pole through them. We shouldered the load and headed up to the ridge top above us. We figured the top would be flatter and easier to walk on. It did not take long to find out why Dad never tried to carry out a deer this way. It was very hard to do and the deer kept swinging back and forth so much we just plain wore out. We did get him over halfway though. We knew we could never get him all the way to the car so we hid him in a patch of sagebrush and marked the place where we could find him again. The only thing to do was to leave him and go get help the next day.
I explained the situation to Dad when I got home. He said we found out the hard way why he never carried a deer on a pole. He had tried it once and had the same results. Dad would go back with us the next day to get him out. Tom’s brother-in-law, Frank Virgil, would go with us to help. Frank was also a very close family friend of ours anyway. After the chores were done the next morning, we headed to the hills to get the deer. We took along the rifles just in case we should find another deer.
We went directly to where the buck was hidden the first thing. Nothing had bothered it overnight, not even the flies had found it yet. The first thing Dad did was to cut it in two pieces. He also cut off the head to make it that much lighter. I wanted to bring out the antlers since they were so unusual. We sawed them off and packed them out. The deer was stiff from being out overnight, making him easier to handle. Dad and Frank each took a half, and away we went to the car. Tom and I had packed him over the hard part so they made short work of getting him the rest of the way. They did what we should have done in the first place.
We learned a very valuable lesson on this trip that will last a lifetime. Never again will I try to pack out a deer or elk on a pole. This is the hardest possible way to go for sure. I will pack them out whole on my back first.
With all this good help we were back to town in a short time with a nice fat buck. Dad had too much work to do at home to want to spend the day trying to find another deer. We split the buck between us and each of us had some good venison for the table. I had made good on bragging I could find a deer with Tom. We had a good time in spite of the problems to start with.