Editor’s note: To accompany Deer Camp ’09, we’ve asked athletes, prominent figures and outdoorsmen to relate their first deer kill .
Until Sarah Palin’s new book comes out, John Annoni is probably the most visible hunter to mainstream America.
Annoni recently has appeared on MSNBC, CBS Evening News, and done numerous newspaper and radio interviews. Google his name and you come with 429,000 listings!
John’s inspirational life story — a kid from the projects raised by his grandmother 
escapes drugs and gangs by hiding in the woods and learning to hunt and fish — told in his book, From the Hood To The Woods, is an American dream come true.
Annoni not only got out of the projects, he became a schoolteacher and went back to teach kids in the projects. That’s a great accomplishment in itself, but then he started Camp Compass, to mentor inner city kids, using hunting and fishing opportunities as rewards for good behavior and ways to build self-esteem and love for nature.
Kids flocked to him. Many organizations such as Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation, RMEF, Sertoma Club, Jaycees and Lion’s Clubs have joined Safari Club International joined in to support Camp Compass.
The guy who went from the hood to the woods, John Annoni, is today a member of Mossy Oak’s National Pro Staff, and in January 2009, John was named one of the 25 most influential people in the outdoors by Outdoor Life magazine.
In between taking kids out into the woods, and teaching school, John sat down to spin the story of his first deer:
“I always talk about this fascination with seeing an arrow in flight. I am sometimes saddened by the speed of the new bow I shoot since tracking the arrow isn’t an easy task. Nevertheless, I can’t stop technology.
“All my hunting life I’ve had this “thing for bows and arrows.” Most first deer fall to guns in the hands of adolescents but my first deer fell to my stick and string or should I say cam and riser after many hours.
“Living in the city and having the background I had didn’t afford me the opportunity to just walk out back and hunt. It was always a chore to find a place to hunt or to even get out.
“My younger years in the PA Deer season taught me a lot about being cold, wet and hungry and nothing about gutting or skinning. It also taught me a lot about myself and that the desire to kill my first deer was very strong. After all I started deer hunting at 12 with a neighbor’s shotgun on public land by myself.
“It seemed the adult ‘hunters’ were just the ride there. They never took it as serious as I did. I’d show up to leave for the hunt at 4:30 a.m. but sometimes we wouldn’t leave town until well after noon because someone overslept, needed licenses or forgot totally they were supposed to meet. I am thankful though that I at least got to smell the woods. Even though I didn’t kill I was carrying a gun and in the woods — I WAS HUNTING! “As I grew older and into my teens I still had a hard time finding rides to the woods, so my success was nil but that was no reflection of my desire to harvest my first deer.
“When I finally got into college I was able to find public land that was just about a 20-minute walk from the campus. I was in heaven. It’s kind of funny to think that most hunters frown upon public land provided by the state for hunting but to me it was my paradise.
“I guess it just worked out that I was in college on a college schedule and that provided opportunities to visit the tract of land on off peak times. I actually thought it was my own little piece of land until I showed up on a Saturday (the first day of pheasant hunting) and saw all of the cars. I honestly thought there was a manhunt on.
“I never knew that little piece of gameland would hold so many hunters. So many in fact that it sounded like a war zone at first light. It was flat out scary. I actually belly crawled to the road and high tailed it home. What I wouldn’t do for a car I remember thinking to myself on the way home. “Needless to say another 2 years went by with no deer on the game pole and by now after 7 years of what I considered hard hunting with a gun and no success I was ready to try something else.
“A classmate asked if I had ever hunted archery before and I had to say no — other than in the woods behind the housing projects I visited when I was a boy. So it was off to learn how to shoot a compound bow.
“What an experience. It was so much more mechanical than the second-hand longbows I shot when I was younger. The very point that got me to try it was that I could extend my chance of getting a deer and didn’t have to worry about getting shot doing it.
“So I got a second-hand Martin and shot it night after night after night. I didn’t realize though no matter how good I got at shooting that finding the right place to hunt was the crucial element. All this time no one ever taught me how to find the right place. I never had anyone teach me to scout, or to suggest looking at maps. I just plopped down and hoped to get lucky.
“Seven years of no luck was enough for me and I decided to start asking questions of everyone I could. That was the best thing I ever did. I found myself becoming not necessarily a more driven hunter but a more well-rounded hunter.
“I started paying attention and focused on sign. I took my bow out for the season opener when I was 20. I picked a tree to climb based on the wind and the direction I knew the other public land hunters would come in from.
“I remember sitting in the tree in the pitch black watching flashlights all over the place and even one guy walking under me. The best way to describe it would have been a great big game of flashlight tag. Nevertheless I sat ready for the day.
“I hate to sound corny but for the first time I was eerily nervous because I had this feeling something was going to happen. When I heard the sound of a deer coming through the woods, I prepared my bow. I stared intently at the path I thought the deer would take. She was working her way through the laurel and stopped to check the wind about 25 yards out. Two more steps I thought and game on.
“She took the steps I needed and needless to say it all was over quicker than I anticipated. The fact that it wasn’t a buck didn’t have any bearing on my emotions because she was my first. As I climbed down the sheer joy of FINALLY connected consumed me. I followed the short blood trail to her. I retrieved my arrow put my bow down beside her and thought, NOW WHAT?”