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As
any good Southern story begins, "Y’all ain’t gonna believe this…."
This
one begins the same way, sort of. I have heard all my life how smart the
whitetail deer is. The only thing smarter in the woods is a mature
whitetail buck. He is nearly impossible to kill and virtually impossible
to see. When a hunter harvests a trophy buck, I am sure along with the
admiration of long tines and heavy racks is an admiration for the hunter
who was either lucky enough or good enough to have taken him.
Personally,
I do not have much experience with harvesting large antlered, mature
whitetail bucks. I have put many a doe into the freezer and many an
immature buck back in the day when we shot any legal buck we saw because
it was likely to be the only one we saw.
Alabama’s
new three-buck limit doesn’t limit my hunting very much because I
rarely ever see three bucks in a season much less have the opportunity
to take them.
After
what happened the other day, I’m not so sure of the intelligence of
the whitetail buck.
I
have been hunting deer for almost 30 years and have seen deer do some
pretty dumb things. Conversely I have been seriously hunting turkeys for
about three years and while an old gobbler won’t win any I.Q. tests, I
haven’t witnessed any particularly stupid behavior.
I
have had deer stand in a foodplot and watch me climb a tree; I have had
deer walk back into a field after having one of their herd mates shot. I
have watched the same deer come back into a foodplot after having been
shot at and missed. I have missed deer and had them stand there for five
minutes trying to figure out what that loud noise was and usually they
found out.
Last
week I was coming home from work on a Saturday. I had been working some
cows and it was about three o’clock in the afternoon. I live in town,
just two blocks from our local city hall; I’m talking deep
downtown.
I
had made the turn from the bypass near where I live and was about
two-and-a-half blocks from my front door. As I turned the corner, I
noticed a mini van on the side of the street with his flashers on.
Thinking there had been a fender bender, I proceeded with caution and
didn’t want to blow through an accident and make things worse on the
poor unfortunate folks who had just had their weekend shot to pieces. As
I neared the van, I noticed an animal lying in front of the vehicle and
my first thought was someone’s pet had met up with tragedy. At this
point I decided to cautiously proceed through the mishap and continue
the last three minutes of my trip home.
As
I drew alongside of the van, I looked over to see whose poor dog had
been "called home" and to my surprise there lay a deer! It was
in its death throes and was clearly severely injured. Knowing most city
folks know almost nothing about dispatching a suffering animal, I
stopped to assist.
Putting
an animal out of its misery is a lesson I learned long ago at the end of
my dad’s belt. I once made the mistake of abusing an insect and sat on
the porch watching it die when my dad came along. He asked what I was
doing and stupidly, I told him. He was furious and while the belt was
being used, I got a lecture about letting an animal suffer. At least
that’s what I can remember. Dad may have told me the meaning of life
during that whipping and I wouldn’t have heard it.
Anyway,
as I got out of my truck, the driver of the van also got out. He asked
me if I had some way to put this animal down. Thinking quickly, I did a
quick inventory of my toolbox and remembered a hammer. This may sound
cruel, but a good hard, well-placed blow with a hammer can be as
effective and quick as a 30/30 rifle. I have had to euthanise cattle
with less and it always works. I had no intention of beating this deer
to death; just one quick blow and it would be over. About three licks
later and several sore knuckles, I came to the conclusion I was on the
edge of beating this deer to death and I decided to find some other way
to put this animal down. I had no firearms with me and I’m not sure
what would have happened had I had one and discharged it in the city
limits.
I
went back to my truck and retrieved my hunting knife and it was all
over. The deer succumbed quickly with as little suffering as possible.
Here
I was standing within three minutes of my house over the carcass of a
six-point whitetail buck! I asked the driver of the van if he had hit
the deer. He said no he hadn’t. He had been driving along when his
mobile phone rang. Being on a slow street, he decided to stop and take
the call. He was finishing his conversation when this buck exploded out
of the backyard of the house on the street, crossed the road in front of
his stopped van and slammed into the chain link fence of the house on
the other side of the street! He said the deer hit the fence, bounced
off, rolled into the street kicking and struggling, and had been that
way for about ten minutes before I arrived on the scene. The deer had
mortally injured itself and was obviously dying.
Before
long, we had a good crowd on the scene. |
