The journey of Kelly Otto's 10 years of hunting starts at the age of 12 years old.
My first sit was horrible. From age 12-16 you are required to sit in a stand within-50-100yds of an adult. So I was going to sit by Pa. He had a stand all picked out and everything was going great. The day of opener morning, we get up at 5:30am, get all dressed in our beautiful blaze orange and head out to the big bad woods, in hopes of killing a big ole buck. If anyone knows our property there is lots of land and plenty of places to go. Well my dad, being the wonderful man he is, he wanted me to get a deer for sure, so we went behind the house "in the valley" I was to sit in an old stand in the valley, we got their and the tree had fallen down. We stood in disbelief. So the next option is to have me sit on a log. I was fine with that. I had a my dad's old 4-10, which to this day, is still my favorite gun! Anywho, If you know anything about hunting, its a waiting game. You wait for deer to get restless walk around, go to a field, get up to eat, or go bed down. Another tricky thing to hunting is direction. No matter what, odds are you are facing the wrong way. It sounds like the deer is coming in front of you, when in reality it comes behind you... Well that was the case for me. I had been hearing this crunching noise and assumed it was coming from my left. Well it wasnt I heard a snap, and turned around to find a huge deer 25 yards behind me. To my advantage the sun was shining and the deers silloute was perfect. Again, I am sitting on a log, so I try to turn around, which after three trys, I successfully did. I was so excited and suprised. I sat there in silence until he started moving again. Mind you I was in a really brushy area and trees were everywhere, the deer would stop behind a tree everytime he stalled. So i brought up my gun and started to panic. My first thought was "the bullet is going to hit the tree and rickashay(spelling) and come back and hit me." Anyone who knows me, I have ten concerns for every event. So I sit there, and waited. Well in the meantime, the buck is walking farther and farther away. So I stand up and full the trigger. Click. He hears the click sees me try and sit down, snorts and jogs away. I was so sad. I sat there sulking for the next hour and 1/2. I wanted to cry, and maybe I did, I cant remember. I hadn't put a bullet in the firing chamber. How stupid. My first day deer hunting by myself and I blew it. Needless to say that nice big buck is now on our wall. I cant remember if it was that day, or that night but my mom shot it! :-) It was a beautiful 8 point monster! That was the first start of my bad luck. Now if I had to tell you every badluck story from the age of 12, we would be here all day! Further more, it was year after year of weird events. One year my new 870 Remington locked up, and I had to use my dad's 12 gauge. He had used it forever, very reliable gun, no problems. First morning I sit out with it, I go to shoot a 10pointer jumping over the fence at the edge of the field, and the gun falls apart...... How does that happen? Bad Luck.
The Tale of Hercules: November 8th, 2007. I raced to my car after work in order to make it in time to hunt. I get done at 4:00pm and you cant shoot after 5:25pm. I was in a hurry. Rich had left the previous Sunday for Iowa, he was in great hopes of finding his own monster to bag. If anyone has heard tales of Iowa, they grow some of the biggest deer in United States! I was on my own journey to kill a monster. It was 4:45 by the time I finally was climbing into my stand. Well, it was actually Rich's stand that I was forbidden to sit in. I had no other options, with the wind and not knowing if Rich's dad was sitting in my other stand, I had to take the chance of climbing into the 25foot stand. I was forbidden to sit in that stand for the reason, obviously I was four months pregnant, but also because the pegs on which you climb into the stand were like 5 feet a part. Furthermore, it took me a little while to shimmy up the stand. In the meantime, my muzzleloader strap gets caught on the last peg. I stall hanging on for dear life. Oh well, I can just crab it when I get up into the stand right? Nope. I get up there and realize that its at least 4-5 feet down from the platform. So I do what any normal person would, grab my rattling antlers and proceed to try and hook the strap on the antlers. Rattling antlers are two antlers tied together with a string to make rattling noises to make the bucks think there are two more bucks fighting. They get curious and want to join in on the fight. Male thing. :-) Anways, so there I am, flat on my stomach trying to get my gun up into the tree. Finally I succeeded. I was sweating from being so nervous and paniced that I had to sit down for a second. As I moved to sit down my backpack, which was open from grabbing the antlers out, fell out of the tree! The loudest noise ever, not only was everything falling out one piece at a time, the bag got stuck on a branch about ten feet down and was dangling. I had to take my muzzleloader and break off the branch, which made in even more crashing noises. By the time I got back up and stood in my stand, I was furious. I couldnt believe all this was happening. I was so excited to go hunting that night, and it all seemed to be ruined. I stood there fuming, with heat steaming off my head.. I looked up to see a 6 pointer trotting across the field coming directly at me... I stood there in disbelief. I had made the loudest noises and been in my stand less then 5 minutes. I laughed and stood there. The 6 pointer came within 15yards to my left and started walking into the woods... I was just watching him in amazement. He was so curious at all the noise that I was making that he walked right to me... So weird... As he is moving around and eating branches I try to turn to watch him. The snap on the bottom of my pants comes undone and makes a scratching noise on the metal platform of my treestand.. Great... The deer looks at me and grunts... I laugh, then I hear a louder grunt.. I stood there wondering if I really had just heard that. So I turn around to see a black blob. I knew that it was a deer, and an old one at that. The darker the deer, the older. I couldnt believe it. The "big" deer was grunting at the lil guy, and didnt even notice me. I was in a weird postion. Facing left trying to turn 90 degrees to bring my gun up so I could look at him through the muzzleloader scope. He was walking up the hill away from me, about 65 yards. By the time I got a good look at his rack, I had seen the left side, and it looked pretty darn nice, so he is at least 70-75 yards away now going UP a hill and facing the wrong direction. Of course, thats my luck. I grunted he stopped, turned to HIS left and I aimed for the heart and shot. He didnt even flinch. He looked my direction, and took off up the hill. I quickly reloaded my muzzleloader, thinking I missed. I sat there in disbelief, first for the fact I thought I missed, no way... I missed, 2nd because I head grunting from the other direction, and the 6 pointer was still standing there. If anyone has shot a gun before you know how loud it is, a muzzleloader is even louder. I sat down to think about what had jsut happened. Had I really missed, I instantly thought of what I would tell Nate, Rich's cousin. He was hunting in the valley to my left. I thought I would just tell him I shot at a coyote or something. As I'm sitting there astounded at the fact that I just missed a deer after taking 10 careful years of planning and preparing to "Shoot the BIG ONE." Then I heard a bunch of grunting again. To may far right there were deer coming out into the field. Another weird event. I just shot a LOUD muzzleloader not 100yds away and the deer were coming from everywhere. All these years I thought they were SMART animals. Anyways, I decide to get down and check out the deer that I "missed" it was useless for me to sit in the tree any longer, even if I seen a huge buck I couldnt shoot at it, just in case I got the other one. By this time it was 5:15pm, 15minutes of daylight left... So I hobbled down the tree. Picked up all the loose items that fell out of my backpack, hiked down the valley to where I shot the buck. No blood. I was furious. Mad at myself, and mad at the deer. So being that I am halfway up a hill I decide to climb all the way up to overlook the other field. I get half way up the hill and hear a grunt to my right. I dropped to my knees and looked down the trail to see a doe coming towards me.. She moved her head looked at me and snorted, then I heard a grunt follow her. Now I really had to take a time out. Not only did my gun get stuck on a tree step, my backpack fall out of a tree, I shoot at a deer and cant find blood, now I had deer walking right up to me while I am sitting on the ground. I stood up, looked at the sky and said " What the heck is going on." At that moment I decided to head back, I turned to the left and saw a glimse of white. My first thought was, "No way," another deer. I walked towards it and soon realized that it was MY BUCK. Hercules was down! I named him as I stood there and stared. It was amazing. He looked like a sleeping dog. I didnt touch him. I called home to get some help.
Mom and dad came to the rescue. Dad helped me drag it up a ways, and we drug it out at least 300yds down a trail into the field. THere of course my dad gutted it for me. I had to take the fourwheeler down the the house to get my "buck tag." I came back and we realized it was my bear tag. SO needless to say by the time I got back with the right tag my dad had finished the job for me. Dad's are great aren't they. So that pretty much wraps up the big "Hercules" adventure. Rich didn't believe me when he called. He knows that I've been waiting FOREVER to shoot the "right deer" so he just laughed and said "whatever." He finally believed me when my mom got on the phone. He came home the next day, he was too excited, he just had to see it. Men. We scored it, 141 2/8" Pretty good size for my first buck. Yippy! I already wrote in the "Baby Journey" book that the baby had already accomplised shooting it's first buck! 4 1/2 months old and already a goodluck charm and good hunter!
