A Zone Archery Opener Recap
I killed a deer this weekend.
Or at least I’m pretty sure I did. But it didn’t really happen at all like I’d planned when I set out on Friday evening.
To begin with, it wasn’t a magnificent, blacktail buck, emerging unsuspecting on a foggy, cool morning from a cluster of oaks. It wasn’t even a barely-legal forked horn that I lucked into as I stumbled clumsily down the rice-krispy hillsides. And I didn’t shoot it with the bow.
No, this was a spotted fawn, and it met its heartbreaking demise at the front right tire of my Dodge Ram truck.
In almost 30 years of driving, I have never hit a deer. Even driving many nights in rural, southeastern NC where the deer are so overpopulated, I’ve always managed to avoid hitting the animals. But on Friday night, as I was covering the last few miles up to the Golden Ram’s Hedgepeth Ranch, the streak ended abruptly… not in shrieking brakes and rending metal, but with a sudden flash and a sickening thump.
The roads climbing up above Lake Sonoma are narrow and winding, barely two lanes, and in many places the brush and grass grow right to the pavement’s edge. It’s a tough crawl with a big truck, especially with the trailered Samurai in tow. I’m fairly attentive when I drive those roads at night, because hogs and deer both cross regularly. Just last season, I stopped and despatched a big boar hog that someone else had hit and left in the middle of the road… his spine broken, he was still full of fight.
Unfortunately, Friday’s little victim was barely as tall as the grass from which she emerged suddenly( I say “she”, although I don’t know why…maybe because that little face with the big eyes and lashes looks so feminine to me). I spotted her just as she appeared under the right, front corner of the truck. Stopping in time was not an option, and I have hauled trailers long enough to know not to panic and swerve, especially on these twisty roads. I felt the steering wheel thump slightly as the tire passed over the little body, and another thump as it rolled under the chassis.
As soon as it was clear, I slowed to a stop, set the flashers, and jumped out with the flashlight. Josh was following right behind me, and he stopped as well… puzzled at why I jumped out. He’d seen something come out behind me, but thought it was a piece of plastic or something. Whatever it was, he told me, it had flopped back over the edge of the road and into the bushes on the steep hillside. We covered the ground below with our flashlights, until I found a patch of hair and blood where the little deer had scraped on the asphalt. A couple of drops of blood (very little, actually) showed the trail off of the road and this is where I focused.
About 20 or 30 yards downhill, I caught the gleam of two eyes, but after a moment I realized that this was a healthy, adult deer. A doe. Momma.
I could anthropomorphize here a bit, and suggest that she was glaring at us in hostile recrimination. But really, I’m sure she was wondering what just happened and trying to decide if she or her little one were in danger. I didn’t hear the youngster bleating or thrashing, thankfully, but I’m sure momma deer knew something was wrong.
Josh and I continued to look, and finally spotted the little deer curled up in a thicket of branches about 10 yards off the road. I kept my distance and looked for obvious signs of injury. I could see blood, but it wasn’t until the fawn stood and tried to hobble away that I could see the real damage to the right shoulder and the leg, dangling below. It didn’t look very good at all. She (or he) disappeared again, and I fully expected to hear her tumbling down the steep grade, into the draw below.
I felt like I had a decision to make. My first instinct was to go get the pistol out of the truck and put the poor thing out of its misery with a quick shot. And maybe that would have been the right thing to do. But as Josh and I bounced the ideas around, we both knew that deer can survive quite well on only three legs if they can avoid predators long enough. She wasn’t raising a lot of fuss to attract coyotes or lions (although she was probably in shock at the time), and momma was right there. If the internal injuries weren’t too bad, she could possibly be mobile enough to get through the first year. They’re incredibly resilient animals.
Maybe that was wishful thinking, trying to ease the guilt I felt, but that’s the decision I made. We’d leave her be, let nature do what it would. I was nearly certain that the little thing would be dead by morning either way, but I felt like I could at least give her a chance. I felt awful as I climbed back into the cab and continued on my way.
And that was about as close as I got to a deer or a hog all weekend. I saw one doe on Saturday morning, and Josh and I bumped one out of a bed that afternoon, but neither of us saw a buck. I spotted a bunch of pigs, but nothing was in a place where I could stalk it. Pressure on the ranch was pretty high, with the cowboys rounding up cattle through my main hunting areas, and a lot of hunters all over the place. It was also hot as blazes. By the time I wrapped up Sunday’s morning hunt, I was ready to go home.
Despite the downer experience on Friday evening, it was a nice weekend. It was awesome to get out and hunt with a new friend, Josh, and of course any day out in the Sonoma County hills is better than sitting around in town.
I’m hoping to get out again before the rifle season opener, but I guess that’s all dependent on work and life.
ADDENDUM: It occurred to me that some readers might wonder why we didn’t try to capture the fawn and take it to a wildlife rehab center. First of all, it was the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. But more importantly, the stress of a capture attempt would certainly have caused further injury to the little deer and likely would have been fatal even if the initial injuries weren’t. The hillside there is extremely steep and covered in loose dirt and rocks, which would have made the effort dangerous to Josh and myself as well. Capture was simply not an option. However, in retrospect, I think it might have been kinder to have shot her.
I know the feeling all too well, Philip. Hailing from the farmlands of NY I have unfortunately hit a deer and know thew sickening feeling you also felt in the pit of your stomach. Nothing can cure that but time. Sorry to hear it happened, but it does happen more often than we talk about it. I am thankful you posted your story for everyone. Hopefully your next time out will be with you putting the stick and string to good use. Have a great week!
July 12th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Thanks, Albert.
I think the biggest reason this hit me like it did was because it was just a little, spotted fawn. I’m not sure you could find an animal that’s more iconic of innocence.
Road kill takes a lot of animals, far more than hunters could ever kill… and the killing is indiscriminate. I’m not sure I have a solution, except for folks to be careful. Although, of course, as we saw in my case, sometimes even being careful isn’t enough.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Phillip, I’ve gone back and forth in my mind over what we could have done, and I really do feel that we couldn’t have done anything more than we did. Deer have extraordinarily high mortality rates with capture – they often just die (some early capture/relocate programs saw 80% mortality rates).
Momma wasn’t far, and if that deer was going to make it at all, she would help.
And people, especially urban folks who don’t get out much, when Phillip says we were in the middle of nowhere, he’s not making an excuse. We were 20 miles, or 45 minutes, from the nearest small town, and at 11 at night. I’m sure we were at least 90 minutes from any place that could have treated her.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
As for the hunt, I had the time of my life. You don’t know this, but I needed this time to get out there, and you really did me a solid. I won’t forget this, Phillip.
I got to put a stalk on pigs three times, and I’m happy to say that only one of those ended because of my fault. I’ve only seen pigs when hunting one other time.
The stalk on one group was the highlight for me. After dropping “along the treeline down to the creek” as you suggested (which turned out to be 100 horizontal, and 5,000 vertical, feet), I found them along the road (ain’t that the case?)… a boar, a sow and six piglets, about 100 yards up the road. I started slow to them, but I knew they’d sniff me out. They did, when I was about 70 yards out. One dead boar, with a rifle – 40 yards too far with my recurve. Still, simply amazing. And a HUGE confidence boost.
Also memorable: Getting the pee-wad scared out of me by a lovesick grouse and his mate. Twice.
Thank you so much, Phillip and Cat.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Josh, I’m really glad you had a good time. That’s a great ranch, even if just to “get out”. The remoteness makes it that much more special… at least to me.
Also glad you got to see, and even stalk, some pigs. I know you hear this all the time, but the pigs are usually a lot more plentiful than we saw on this trip. I was really hoping you’d get to sling an arrow.
We’ll definitely do it again sometime, although I know as September gets closer, you’ll be sticking closer to home.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Oh man, am I sorry to hear about that fawn. But it sounds like you did everything right, both in diligently looking for her, and in deciding to let her make a go of life. If she doesn’t make it, she’ll be quick prey – and food – for the ‘yotes. But animals are so reslilient that it wouldn’t surprise me if she did make it.
And Josh, welcome to hunting with Phillip. He loves walking razor’s edges over 5,000-foot drops. Sounds like you had a great time!
July 12th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Man, I feel for you, Phillip. That really, and truly sucks.
Thankfully, I’ve never hit a deer, though we live in some serious deer country (and now that I’ve typed that, I’ll hit one tomorrow), but, if it’s any consolation, my brother and I filmed a doe last year who was moving along just fine on three legs.
And, actually, even if we would have had the chance to shoot her (we didn’t), I’m not sure I would have, because she was so content with the way she moved and fed.
We’ve laid eyes on her a few time since, and she appears to be holding her own, even with a large coyote population.
Animals are amazingly resilient, as you know, so who knows.
July 12th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
YOU SAW GROUSE!!! Sorry to be off-topic for a second, but WTF?! There are not supposed to be grouse in California unless you are a) at 10,000 feet and are seeing ptarmigan, or b) in Del Norte County, where there are a few ruffed grouse. What gives?
Back on topic. I feel for you, man. The only time I’ve felt like throwing up when I’ve been around deer was one day, when I was zipping along Hwy 88 in the Sierra Foothils, I rounded a corner and voom! Ran over a fawn.
Worst part? I did not hit that fawn. Someone before me did. I went right over it somehow, missing it completely. But I saw its head go up when I passed, so I knew it was alive. But the poor deer was on a curve in a road with no shoulders and a steep dropoff on one side. It would have been suicide for me to try to help it. But I actually came very close to pulling over anyway.
Why do we, seasoned hunters, all feel this way about the baby animals we hunt?
July 12th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Thanks all. It was a drag, but it can’t be undone. Hope it doesn’t happen again, though.
Hank, I’ve been seeing grouse out there every trip for the last several years. I’ve seen them in several places in Mendocino County also. I think they’re hunting them up in Covelo. You can see a zone map at: http://www.fgc.ca.gov/maps/uplandgamemaps.pdf
Definitely can’t shoot them in Sonoma, though. It is fun to bump them. If you have heart failure and don’t have an AED handy, just jump a grouse. It’ll do the same thing.
July 12th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Phillip,
I had a perfect record of not hitting a deer until we moved to North Dakota and in the past ten years I’ve hit four, M has hit two, step-son Travis hit a couple and my other step-son has hit one or two. Why so many? I think it has to do with the grass up to the edge of the road and the deer population. I’ve counted as many as 200 whitetail in a single field. The mindset that I’ve come to accept is that nature now includes the mortality of the highway and we play a role in that–as part of a new nature. That doesn’t make it any easier, just a sort of way of thinking.
glg
July 12th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
I think you did the right thing. The most important thing is that you didn’t get hurt in the crash!
Deer-related wrecks are a constant threat where I live. My father-in-law hit one just last week
July 13th, 2010 at 1:23 am
Even better is when you are startled by a grouse or ptarmigan with little chicks. The explosion of momma, followed by the scattering of chicks at your feet creates an illusion of the ground parting beneath you. Great feeling while on a rocky cliff!
July 13th, 2010 at 5:56 am
Galen, I have come to feel the same way about highway mortality. We (or our highways) have become that much of a part of the habitat. We’ve seen so much roadside carnage that we sort of become inured to it… at least until we’re the one that causes it.
Matt, thanks. There was no crash this time. The poor little deer couldn’t have been more than 25 or 30 lbs, and didn’t even come up high enough to hit the quarterpanel of my truck. I was also going so slow at the time that, had it been an adult deer, it likely would have bounced off and run away.
Brian, I’ll have to try that sometime. I can’t recall ever seeing grouse chicks up there…
July 13th, 2010 at 6:47 am
Hank, California’s North Coast country is odd like that. We were at about 3k feet, and we also had the chance to see both valley and mountain quail in that range. I think it has to do with its proximity to the ocean as well as the extremeness of the ranges’ contours that provide dozens and dozens of microclimates. The flora up there was amazing – and the sierra gooseberries were ripe. I saw monstrous madrones, too, and what I believe was a California blackberry – a couple of ripe ones, and they were good.
Again, it was amazing.
July 13th, 2010 at 9:11 am
That’s a hard one, Phillip. Thanks for sharing the story.
I had never hit a deer with a car until this past winter. Thankfully, the doe kind of hit the car, jumping into the side of it, and got up and walked off. For a moment, though, I thought I was going to have to finish her off right there on the road. Tracking her in the snow a few hours later, I was pretty sure she would make it.
The experience gave new perspective on how I feel about kinds of harm: intentional (hunting) vs. unintentional (driving).
July 14th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Phil,
Sorry to hear about your deer incident, and glad you didn’t have a more serious accident yourself. You did the right thing by not trying to “rescue” the fawn.
I was out at Hedgepeth last Friday and Saturday and put a stalk on a buck. Saw hogs. Very addicting. Will be out there again this weekend.
Cheers,
Sol
July 21st, 2010 at 11:20 am