Now that the regular firearms deer season has ended, the stories of success and of failure are a frequent part of deer hunting enthusiasts’ conversations. It usually doesn’t take long for the “devices” to come out, and photos of successful hunts are passed around for everyone to see.

Many of those photos include first-time hunters. Some youngsters, and even older hunters, show up smiling and posing with that first deer. The photos seldom reveal trophy racks, but that doesn’t matter; what matters is that those new to deer hunting have bagged that first-ever deer and their smiles reflect their joy and excitement.

Over the years, like a lot of others reading this piece, I have had the opportunity to guide and mentor a number of first-timers on deer hunts — sometimes successful and sometimes not.

Last week I took my granddaughter, Sierra, and her husband, Tyler, on a hunt. Sierra has already taken a couple of deer, but this is Tyler’s first year ever hunting. The week before, we spent hours in a stand without even sighting a deer, so I was hoping for more encouraging results this time around.

The three of us hiked nearly a mile back into the woods and took up a stand in a fallen tree partway down the side of a steep hollow. I must admit that what happened next was not what I call ‘typical’ of a deer hunt.

Hardly a half-hour after we got situated, I spotted four deer walking about 150 yards below us, and they all flopped down to bed for the morning. With all the trees and brush, they were difficult to see clearly, so the three of us sat tight, hoping they would eventually get up and walk closer — hopefully offering a decent shot. After about an hour and a half, nothing changed — the deer sat tight, and so did we.

Two thoughts came to my mind; one idea was for me to sneak up to the top edge of the woods and make a big circle around and hopefully drive the deer past Sierra and Tyler. The second scenario was for me to take Tyler on a stalk closer to the deer and hopefully get a clearer shot — we opted for the second option.

Stalking bedded down deer that you can watch as you move isn’t something most experienced hunters might do, let alone two hunters — one of which never hunted a deer in his life.

I had been watching the bedded deer through my binoculars for over an hour, and I noticed that they were laying down facing down the slope — none were looking our way, and the wind was in our favor. After a half-hour, we managed to close the gap down to about a hundred yards and better visibility. Upon reevaluating the situation, we found the three deer we could now see were laying one in front of the other, with each deer’s head and neck blocking the desired lung shot just behind the shoulder of the deer behind it. We had no option but to take the first deer.

Following the shot, those deer and several more we hadn’t seen before jumped up and took off — including the one Tyler shot at. I told Tyler we would go down and check out the area before we assumed it was a miss.

Sure enough, sufficient blood and brown hair indicated a probable fatal lung shot when we got there. A short distance tracking soon revealed the downed deer about 100 yards from where it was shot.

No, not a trophy buck, but a successful hunt, and a somewhat unique situation for a first-time hunter — as well as a good learning experience.