I was born and raised in Tucson. My Dad hunted these deer every year. When I turned twelve I was allowed to hunt after my hunter education course.
My first deer was shot in self defense. My Dad sat my mother on one saddle and sat me on an adjacent saddle while he went bird dogging down the hillside. Just the way he planned it, I heard my Mom shoot and then I heard a huge animal coming up the ravine towards me in the saddle. As the noise got closer I knew it had to be a large bull elephant making all that noise. When the beast came out of the brush at about five yards, I stuck the borrowed Savage 300 out in self defense and killed my first deer. No one has ever been more proud of a deer that field dressed at about sixty pounds. It was a young doe that matched the tag I had in my pocket. Later that day my Dad filled his tag. Three deer in one day was a great way to fill the freezer.
For the next five years my Mom, Dad and I put three Coues (pronouned "cows") deer in the freezer every year. The area we hunted was south of Sonoita around Patagonia. We hunted quail, rabbits and javelina in the same area.
During this time we applied for a special hunt in the Santa Rita Game Management Area. This was, at the time, 1963, an area that had been closed to hunting for over twenty five years. I was the only one in my family to draw a tag. Compared to the itty, bitty Coues deer we had been hunting, the desert mule looked like cows. That area was big open draws and ridgelines with really long shots. At that time I was using my Dad's surplus Springfield with stock military sights. I shot a huge, to me, desert mule deer doe. At the end of that hunt I had no love for that deer. My Dad's rule: You shoot it, you clean it and carry it. He did carry the rifle but we were a couple of miles away from our car and the ridges and draws only got larger as the distance to the car became shorter. I was thirteen and like I said, that deer seemed like it was as big as a cow.
It has only been in the last few years that I have realized how fortunate I was to hunt in that area during those years. In my old memory, I can remember seeing deer every day and putting meat in the freezer every year.
I was the oldest of six children and the game that we shot was most of the protein that our family lived on.
