Warning: Graphic hunting content below
Let's go back to Tuesday afternoon about 2:30. Keith & I are unloading our bows from the car and getting ready to head out for an afternoon / evening of hunting at the property we've got for the Missouri Urban Hunt. We discuss our plan, get our things together and head out. By 2:45 I'm in my stand. Keith is on his way to his stand and comes over the radio, "I'm heading down into my woods now...be watching." Within a few minutes I hear animals running in the field to my left, heading for my woods. There's a doe. I make a little "aak" sound and she stops running, I draw back, she looks behind her and I realize there's another deer. With the rut in full swing (the deer's mating season) I figure it's a buck, so while still drawn back, I look behind her and see a little buck not really worth taking (and not a good clear shot anyway), so I look back to the doe. She's moving again. Another "aak" sound and she stops, perfectly broad side with her front leg forward to expose the vital area. I shoot. It's a great shot! She turns and starts to run out of my woods, towards Keith. I get on the radio, "Keith, I just a shot a doe. She's running towards your woods and a little buck is following her....Nevermind, she's gone down...the buck has stopped, too." Now, here comes the interesting part. Anyone reading this who has ever hunted and shot a deer, particularly with a bow, knows they 'get out dodge' when they are shot and, at least everytime I've ever seen this, other deer in the area will 'high tail' it out as well. This little buck stayed around. He even ran out of the woods, circled around a little creek, and came back into the woods where she had fallen. At this point, he's out of my view now, but I know he's still there because I haven't seen him the leave area. I ask Keith the time...It's 3:10. Over the next ten minutes or so, I see the little buck walk around a little more, then he disappears from sight again for about 20 minutes. By now, it's been long enough to track the doe. I know she's down already and I know where she fell, but I still track the blood trail looking for my arrow along the way. About 30 yards from my stand, I find the arrow and keep tracking towards the spot where she fell. Keith comes on the radio with two quick 'beeps'. (that's our 'code' to stop...deer in sight') So I lean up against a tree and wait. The next thing I hear from him is, "I just shot at a buck, but I don't know if I hit him or not...I couldn't tell. He's heading right into your woods" Well, I'm standing right off of the path he'll bring in, so I slip in behind a huge tree that shadows me from the buck's sight just as I see him coming into my woods. He didn't look hurt, bleeding, or limping, but he just wasn't acting right. (Hindsight should have told me he was injured, but I knew I only had one tag left, and I knew my doe was down, so I hesitated to shoot him if I didn't know for sure he'd been hit already. My guess was, if Keith wasn't sure if he hit him then it probably wasn't a good shot, but still, I hesitated.) The buck got about 15 feet from me, looked at me, and started off down the path towards my stand. Wait! Was that blood on his stomach? Dammit, I thought I was watched him trot on...Keith had hit him! With nothing left to do but watch him go on, I got on the radio to Dad, who had in the meantime come out and brought the deer cart to aid in getting my doe back to the truck..."Dad, Keith just shot a buck...it looks like his stomach was bleeding...he's heading down the path behind my stand now." Keith comes on and says he's found his arrow and a blood trail. First, I wanted to find my doe and get her taken care of, then we'll go track the buck. So, back to my blood trail. Suddenly, a little buck jumps up about 12 feet away...the little buck that was with the doe when I shot her. He had bedded down right beside the doe! This is a little weird to me, especially since I've never heard of a deer bedding down with another deer that's injured or dead. Plus, the little buck is not even scared at all. He trotted off about 10 yards, stopped, turned back to look at me, then trotted on off into the field. Now, he's not just any little buck. I've seen him out there before and he's what I've called the half buck. He only has antlers on one side of his head! Three little points on one side, and nothing on the other. Probably lost it early year when rubbing the velvet off. Anyway...the little buck had stayed with the doe until I got to her. At first, I thought maybe since they were bedded down together when Keith jumped them up, he was just bedding down with her again...not realizing she had died. Then I remembered how he ran out of the woods and circled back around to be able to get to her. My heart kinda sunk a little. Pretty amazing how most people will say that animals can't reason things and while they probably can't tell you what two plus two is, this little buck sure reasoned how to get to his doe and he stayed there until I had come. Okay, now comes the crazy part and the part where everyone reading this will say I've completely lost my mind! After getting my doe cleaned and drug out to the deer cart, we tracked Keith's buck for another two hours. The blood trail thinned out at times, we lost it completely at times, then we ran out of daylight. So, yesterday morning bright and early, I headed out to start looking again. I headed in to the woods at a different spot than I had originally planned to because the workers at the power plant were out and I didn't want to walk by them when I was out there alone. No big deal...I made a quick change in plans and headed in. Walking up to a little ridge that overlooks a creek like area, I stopped to decide which way I wanted to head in. Let's go right. All of the sudden I jump up a deer. It stands up, walks a few feet, turns and looks at me. (Here again, if you've ever hunted, you know that when you jump a deer from bedding, they'll flip their tails and run) It's the little half buck that had bedded down with my doe the night before! He looks at me, looks back where he was laying, I look back where was laying and see Keith's buck! He had bedded down with the buck, too and just like with my doe, once I got there, he left. I looked back at the little half buck, and almost as if he knew I'd seen the buck, he turned and trotted off into the woods. Crazy!! I stood there and watched him trot off and simply could not believe my eyes! He had bedded down with both of our deer until I found them! They were down in two totally different parts of the woods, too! I couldn't help but think that little buck was trying to tell me where Keith's buck was by looking at me, then looking back and once he knew I'd found it, he left.
Now, before anyone starts leaving comments like, "How can you kill these animals with stories like these"... I'd also like to tell you a story from last week. On his way home from work one night, Keith sees a huge 8 point buck along side the road eating. We head out to the store and a few hours later, take that same path home and see the huge 8 point buck lying alongside the road dead! Hit by a car. We stop, thinking it's only been a few hours, the weather's in the 30s, the meat is probably still good and the rack is great! When we got to the deer, his back had abrasions, his neck was turned kinda funny, and his back legs looked like spaghetti noodles wrapped around each other. Keith grabbed the antlers to drag him out of the road, and his insides sloshed around, at once a terrible smell filled the air. His insides had spoiled...been damaged terribly by the hit. We loaded him into Dad's truck, and after determining that the meat would be no good to eat, cut the rack and disposed of the deer's body in the woods where the raccoons and coyotes could have a feast. At least he wasn't a total waste. He made deer number 7 we've seen dead on that road just in the last two weeks. One of the does we saw, had her body lying on one side of the road, and her head on the other. Another doe we saw was spread along the road in about 5 pieces.
So, is it sad to me to find this little half buck bedded down by a dead deer that I shot? Is it sad to me to see him bedded down the next morning with another dead deer that Keith shot? No. It was rather peaceful actually because the little buck was not scared or frightened at all. In fact, he seemed at peace when I arrived both times, and simply went on his way once I got there. What's sad to me is seeing these deer pile up on the roads, mangled masses of blood and body parts. Completely wasted. Hearing news reports weekly of people injured or even killed because of hitting a deer on the roads. That's what is sad to me, not humanely killing an animal for it's meat.
The little half buck gets a free pass this season. I just hope he doesn't find his way into the front of an oncoming vehicle.
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