When I was in high school, some friends and I decided to ditch the afternoon classes as it was close to Christmas break and we weren’t doing much in school anyway.

There were six of seven of us and one kid had a 76 1/2 ton Chevy pickup that his uncle put a 500 cubic inch Cadillac engine in. That pickup was pretty hot! But anyway…

They had been hounding me to take them rabbit hunting since I was a farm kid I knew where to go. So we all piled in Jeff’s pickup and loaded for bear with everything imaginable from shotguns to hunting rifles and we lit out.

I had been waiting patiently for this day to come as I was kind of ornery and liked a good joke. And to make a good practical joke, it takes planning and patience.

We hunted for a good while and it was getting close to sundown so I decided it was time to put my plan into action.

We had a good friend who had deer hanging around his farm and I thought we’d swing by there and I’d see just how honest my friends were… well we crossed the cattle guard and I said “hey hold up there’s a buck standing over there!” Jeff skidded to a stop and we almost lost a few guys outta the back of the truck and I pointed out that buck. Those fellas were getting real excited looking at that big buck. Then one kid named Louie whispers “can we shoot it?” It was quite for about a minute but then someone else said “I bet nobody will catch us way out here.”

I never said a peep, then suddenly it sounded like WWIII cut loose! They started blasting away and I was trying my best to keep control. I said “you guys are horrible shots! You can’t even hit a deer that’s standing dead still! What’s wrong with y’all!” Directly someone piped up and said “hey wait a minute I just shot and it sounded like it hit metal!” I yelled back “be careful you don’t want to hit anything you can’t eat!”

One more shot rang out then someone said “hey that deer ain’t real!” I couldn’t hold it any longer and I burst out laughing.

You see, our neighbor made a steel cut out of a deer and painted it all up and if you were 100 yards out it looked just like a buck deer standing there in the edge of the cotton patch. It even had a reflective dot glued on for an eye so at night, it would tempt even the most righteous soul into shooting at it.

Did I mentioned how dishonest they all were? I reckon I wouldn’t be going hunting with any of them… at least till they was reformed anyway.

Later I saw the neighbor and he asked how many were shooting at that deer because it sounded like a war had started.

They were pretty embarrassed, and after I took a few punches to my arm, they settled down. They didn’t see any humor in it at first but they got over it pretty fast.

They weren’t the first victims to fall for that big buck, though. We had to drive over and get out to take a closer look. It was full of plug welds along with some more recent holes.

Recently my son ran into Jeff and he still remembered that episode after all these years. Those were the good old days. Memories made with a farm kid.