Disbelief in Headlights

This particular story is still playing out in my head as I write this. What are the chances? How did I leave the house specifically when I did and go to do what I was going to do? How did I have almost everything on hand to handle the specific situation put in front of me? And how did I end up with a mature 8-point buck in my truck bed and meat in the freezer?

Saturday November 12th, 2022. My wife and I woke up and went through our normal morning routine. Walk the dog, feed the baby, and make our coffee. We both had mounds of laundry to do, so we, with our baby and dog, went up to the loft to fold together. I had even tuned in to Mark Kenyon on the TV. I watched him hunting big bucks in Wisconsin as we sorted socks into this pile and shirts into the next.

When my son was ready for naptime, I had my opportunity to go do something fun. The agreement was that I could go shoot my bow for an hour, and then I would take care of little man, and my wife could go do yoga. I was to have the possibility of hunting with my bow in a week and had not shot it in a few weeks. I needed to sharpen up and make any adjustments. However, one hour quickly turned into over four hours.

I left the house in boots, jeans, and a Henley long sleeve. Because I live in a neighborhood where local Karen’s reside, I wanted to get away to a place a bit safer to shoot. I knew of a place down by the highway where I had seen four-wheelers mudding. I got on the OnX app on my phone, and it turns out that the area is a public land location. However, this is the kind of place where people dump used tires, old TVs, and children’s mattresses. Not a place for a deer stand, but a place where I could shoot my bow and not be bothered…or bother anyone.
I pull into the parking area of this mud pit, and as I stepped out of my vehicle, I saw movement out of my left eye. I looked up, and there he was, a very large 8-point buck bedded and slightly struggling to get up and run.

I realized quickly his back leg was busted up badly, and likely from a car. In what felt like time pausing, I was flooded with all these questions. Is he going to run away? Perhaps. Can I shoot him legally? Yes. Do I take action? Maybe. And just like that, I snapped back into reality, I went to the back of the truck, and it was on!

My heart was pounding, and everything else around me zoned out. I had three arrows with field points ready to go. I wrapped my trigger release on my wrist and went full- on Rambo. If Rambo was severely overwhelmed and shaking like a leaf. There was a dirt road that I knew he would have to cross in order to get away. He crossed, and I let an arrow fly. I missed, hitting a metal pipe that shattered my carbonfiber arrow shaft. I then continued following him as I knocked another arrow. By now he has gone down a bank, across a river, and as he was climbing the far side of the riverbank, I came to full draw and let the arrow fly. I missed.

At this point I saw him bed. I realized his ability to run was nonexistent. I could actually make a play on having an ethical shot. I climbed down the bank, crossed the river getting knee deep in sandy water. At this point my boots were full of water, socks soaked, and I was about to climb up the bank to be on solid ground with him again. I knew I could not climb up exactly where he did, as he was just ten feet from the bank’s edge.

It was then that I remembered a story from MeatEater's Campfire Stories: Close Calls. A story specifically sticking out in my mind was where a man had to fight a deer down to the ground with his bare hands avoiding penetration from the antlers. I knew I didn’t want to use my knife to finish him as he had far too much power at this time.

Another lesson learned from the same book, was not to knock my arrow before I climb up the bank. There is a story about a gentleman who cuts his face terribly with his broad head and essentially, the 250lbs human with a razor-blade on a stick is more dangerous than a 200lbs animal with spikes on its head.

I refrained to knock my arrow until I climbed up the seven foot bank, roughly twenty feet down from where the buck was. I specifically angled myself to where he would have to go back down to the river to get away. At this point he was lying down, and we locked eyes. I moved closer and could see his whole body. With one arrow left, and my being there to practice, I took a few extra steps to ensure I made a lethal shot.

I let my arrow fly and hit him just in the shoulder roughly two inches lower than I wanted. He was not going anywhere. I almost never leave my house without my revolver, and for some reason, I looked at it that morning and decided not to bring it. I called my wife and she brought me the gun. I had to hike back down the bank, across the river, up the bank, back to the truck, and do it all again.

I fired one shot and put him out of his misery. I sat on the bank with my feet hanging freely for a solid ten minutes trying to process what had just transpired. Everything was still and immediately calm. I had not even counted the points on his head when I shot him. I didn’t even know what I was hunting because it all was such a blur.

Now, some might say I did the total opposite of ending the deer’s pain. “Taking it out of its misery”. That I inflicted more pain. I will be honest that it did not go as planned, but at the same time, there was no plan. I had an Amazon box in the bed of my truck I was planning on using as a target. I was not planning on harvesting an animal. I had a way of means to end the animal’s suffering. He had been hit by a car, and when I did get up to him after taking a deep breath, he actually had two broken legs. I honestly have no clue how he limped as far as he did. Part of me wonders if he would have lived if I had not gotten to him, but I can almost say with certainty he would have been killed by wild dogs, coyotes, or another hunter that found him later in the day. I did what I thought was best at the time and did make my best attempts at ending his pain quickly.

Unlike the hunting TV shows that end after the grip and grin photograph has been taken, I wasn’t able to simply say, “Well that’s all folks, join us next time”. The work was just starting as I had to get him in my truck. I had to drag him down the bank, through briars, across the river, up the bank, and load him. I almost gave up twice on this venture. I nearly didn’t get him up the furthest riverbank. It took everything in me to do so. Secondly, I had to field dress him, something I had never done before, just to lighten him up before using ratchet straps to get him in the air enough to push him in my truck. I felt like an engineer using three separate hook points to distribute his weight and get him up high enough.. I do not know how long this took, but I was drenched in sweat. I mean it, I was soaked.

I drove him twenty-five minutes to the closest processor, where I tagged him, and am paying to have as much of the meat that is salvageable put in the freezer. To add to this mess of a day, Forsyth County, NC is the first and only county to have signs of CWD. I was greeted by four NC Wildlife Management Officers who were there to test all deer being processed. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention website states, “Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease that affects deer, elk, reindeer, sika deer and moose. It has been found in some areas of North America, including Canada and the United States, Norway and South Korea. It may take over a year before an infected animal develops symptoms, which can include drastic weight loss (wasting), stumbling, listlessness and other neurologic symptoms. CWD can affect animals of all ages and some infected animals may die without ever developing the disease. CWD is fatal to animals and there are no treatments or vaccines.”(Editor’s note: deer did not have CWD and was not hit by vehicle. Was injured by natural causes)

Also, CWD is in the brain and, therefore, meant the processor could not simply saw off the skull cap and give me the antlers. In fact, they were not taking heads at all and sending everyone home with their deer heads. I asked him, “what am I supposed to do with it?,” and he explained that he couldn’t risk CWD being tracked back to his operation…which I understood. Instead, I had to bring the head home and saw the antlers off myself.

The entire event was ironic. I have hunted North Carolina for approximately ten years and have never seen a mature buck worth shooting. All the bucks I have seen were too young, not big enough, or not going to be mounted, so in general, I would rather shoot a doe. Yet, I am just outside my suburban neighborhood, not hunting, without a gun, for less than three minutes, and harvest a mature 8-point with significant mass (for what I understand Western North Carolina deer to produce). All in all, this was an experience I will never forget, and as I process what happened, I feel like I am the deer in headlights.

Disbelief in Headlights

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