By: Jay Walters
I caught the handgun-hunting bug early on in life, and while I can think of several things that started me off in that direction,there isn’t one particular moment I can put my finger on. When I was young my older brother Joe happened to find some old traps hanging in the shed that my grandfather and Father had used when they were young. Well, it didn’t take much convincing from my brother to get Dad to start another trap line on the farm and what started with a few sets near the house quickly turned into multiple hours in the dark before school checking traps and late nights skinning muskrats, raccoon and fox. I started tagging along as soon as they would let me which meant as soon as I could get myself out of bed at O’dark thirty every morning. Like a lot of other trappers out there our dispatch weapon of choice was a 22lr handgun. It started with my Dad’s Browning Buckmark and as soon as Joe had a driver’s license and could head his own direction in the morning, a Ruger Single Six was added as well. Now the hardest part about dispatching those animals in the morning was holding the flashlight so you could see the animal and at least have an idea where your sights werebut after a couple of times being the one who got to pull the trigger, I started to think about what else I could shoot with that handgun. It wasn’t long and we were buying extra ammo for Joe and I to compete against each other with on targets, rabbits,squirrels, or anything else they would let us shoot at. I had already spent many years getting beaten with rifles and shotguns on the regular and he continues to do that to this day. Handguns though… that was my realm between the two of us. I could always beat him shooting with handguns, whether it was those 22s, his first 44 or my first Encore, and every handgun in between, when you find something you can finally beat that family rival at, it sticks with you. Since this was before the whole www.alltheinformationgoodorbad.com days I scoured every hunting magazine I could get my hands on to try and find out more about hunting with handguns. Mark Hampton, Larry Kelly and JD Jones articles were coveted reading for me at the time. I wanted more. When Joe headed to college, I bought his Ruger Single Six from him and kept chasing squirrels and rabbits, but I wanted to get a whitetail with a handgun. We hunt a lot of open fields here in south central Wisconsin and I had rarely shot a deer under 100 yards with a rifle so I was naturally drawn to the Contender pistol. It just so happened that in my junior year of high school, Thompson Center announced they were releasing their Encore pistol. Many discussions were had with my parents about putting an order in for one of those 15” 308 Winchester pistols over the next few weeks. My parents just didn’t see why someone would want a handgun to hunt with let alone a “rifle” cartridge single shot, the fact that I had already saved the money for it didn’t matter to them. Thank goodness for older brothers like Joe, he was home on break from school and 5 years age difference meant he was old enough to put an order in for that Encore. By the time spring break was over I had my Encore with a Simmons fixed 3×28 scope and my dadjust shook his head but he wasn’t shaking it for long. We had built a 200 yd range behind my grandparent’s house just a couple of years before obtaining my Encore so he could prepare for an elk hunt and we continue to make good use of that range to this day. Our reloading set-up was in the basement of their house as well and there were a lot of afternoons spent loading a few rounds and stepping out to shoot them on the range and back downstairs to fine-tune that load which ended up being 165gr Nosler Ballistic Tip over a case full of IMR 4895 powder. Three weeks went by and I asked my dad to come watch me shoot and see if he still thought I was crazy, after a 4-shot group measuring just under 1 inch at 100 yards he still thought I was crazy but was convinced I’d be able to kill a deer with it. I was lucky enough to draw a doe tag that fall (which seems strange to write now that you get 4 doe tags when you buy your license every year today) and knew that meant I would for sure get a chance to put that Encore to use. The deer season that year was a bit of an anomaly for WI in that it was warm and rainy almost the entire 9 days (yes that was all we got for firearms in those days and it isn’t much better today). The Wisconsin firearm season ran from The Saturday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday after, a whole 9 days of chasing whitetails with a handgun for me that year. Thanksgiving Day was a foggy and drizzly morning but I was out in a tall cherry tree overlooking a hayfield and edge of the woods when a group of does began to cross the field about 260 yards out. A quick check with the binoculars to confirm that they were does as that 3x Simmons didn’t provide much in the way of magnification and I started to get that Encore ready. We had a number of permanent stands built around the farm including the cherry tree I was in that morning but the rests were built with the idea of using a rifle so it took a bit of maneuvering to get into a steady position and in doing so I let the rain get all over my ocular lens of the scope. Trying to find something dry to clear it off wasn’t an option as the deer were nearing the edge of the woods. Quickly smudging the water with my fingers made it so I could see the crosshairs and I settled back on the trigger just as the largest of the does paused just before entering the woods. At the sound of the shot the rest of the deer took off in all directions but I could clearly see the one I was interested in hadn’t gone anywhere but straight down, DRT as they say. I couldn’t see the smile on my face but I could sure feel it realizing I had shot my first whitetail with a handgun, and had done it at a distance most of my family hadn’t done with a rifle! I sat for a few minutes to let my excitement wane before trying to climb out of the tree I felt a bit of a war trickle down the right side of my nose. Performing a quick check with my hand confirmed the slight trickle of blood and a bit of a gouge on the bridge of my nose. In trying to find a clear view through scope I’d allowed myself to creep a little too close to the Encore, for the first time (not the last) in my life I had scoped myself and it was with a handgun lol. After a short chuckle to myself about how the rest of the hunting party was going to give me a good ribbing about that I got out of the tree and made the short walk across the 40 acres to my house to get my dad and the truck to go pick up my first handgun hunted deer. Dad knew I was out hunting had heard the shot and seen me walking in and was ready by the time I got back to the house so we headed right out. I had to keep telling him to keep driving as we headed out across and the field and when we finally arrived where the doe was laying, he asked me how far it had run after I shot. When I let him know that it didn’t run at all and had dropped right where it lay, he looked back and the stand and just shook his head, smiled and said nice shot. I’ve shot several other does with handguns in the years since but none that I remember as well or as vividly as this one, there is just something about your firsts that makes them that extra bit special. Unfortunately, that Encore was stolen a number ofyears back but I still remember everything about it, including the serial number (3199 if you care). My parents must have known I was hooked after that deer as well because as soon as deer season was over, I was bugging them about getting a 17 Remington barrel for varmints on the farm. Christmas that year I got the usual socks and underwear and not much else but after all the presents were unwrapped my parents handed me a small card. Inside was a note from Thompson Center that an order for a 15” 17 Remington barrel had been received and an expected ship date of February the following year. I still smile thinking about receiving that note and that barrel is still safe and sound and taking care of woodchucks on the farm to this day, just on a different frame. I’ve added guns to the handgun hunting rotation over the years, Revolvers, Contenders, more Encores, and bolt action pistols of various makes but those are stories for another day.
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