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Whitetail Fanatic
Whitetails GONE Wild? Ruth Hesselink of Holland, Wisconsin phoned sheriff's deputies to report that the ceramic deer ornament in her yard was knocked over and decapitated by a hoofed vandal. According to Capt. Dave Adams of the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department, Hesselink witnessed a buck attacking her lawn decoration as dusk settled one evening. Adams said a deputy responding to the call discovered "obvious track marks" that supported Hesselink's account of the bully buck. Des Moines, Iowa,
animal control officers were dispatched to tranquilize and free a whitetail buck
that had become entangled in netting that was being utilized as a backyard
batting cage. Steve Eckley, the homeowner whose backyard was the scene of
entanglement, said he was busy scouring the neighborhood, retrieving the
scattered pieces of his 8-foot netted structure. Farmington,
Illinois hunter Steve Balagna felt compelled to shoot a 7-point buck after the
deer crashed through his 57-by-78-inch picture window. Balagna was quietly
having coffee with his wife, son and a friend when he says the window in his
house exploded. "He had jumped into the window and kept coming when the glass
broke," Balagna said. "Then he got his antlers stuck in the Venetian blinds and
we all got out of there." The deer headed for a bedroom that Balagna had
recently remodeled, leaving a trail of blood on the hardwood floors. He and son
tried unsuccessfully to herd the deer through a hallway and into the garage.
That's when the deer went ballistic. "He charged the bed and he charged the
closet doors and he was cut up from the window, so he was bleeding all over,"
Balagna said. Even though nearly two weeks remained before the opening of
Illinois' first firearms hunting season, enough was enough. The veteran
outdoorsman grabbed a .22 rifle and subdued the buck with four shots to the
head. "I called our conservation officer after that and told him I just blasted
a deer in my bedroom," Balagna said. There can be downside to having glass doors that open whenever someone or something simply places their foot on a rubber mat especially during the peak of the whitetail rut in America's heartland. Such was the case when an 8-point buck entered the Super Target in West Des Moines, Iowa, through the automatic door near its one-hour photo lab. Witnesses said the wayward buck slid across the slippery tile flooring, losing traction and falling, before dashing toward the clothing section. Customers calmly exited the store and waited while employees chased the deer throughout the store for about 20 minutes, before successfully directing it out an emergency exit. While the occurrence is unusual, most of us have heard stories about firearms hunters who have bagged two deer with one pull of the trigger. Because of the nature of modern rifles and loads, it is entirely conceivable that a couple of deer standing close together can be taken with a single, well-placed shot. But two deer with a single hunting arrow? Now that's another story altogether. It happened to bowhunter Martin Walker of Leland, Mississippi, as he hunted from his 20-foot ladder stand above a food plot. Walker said he watched two does feeding close together on a rainy October evening when one presented him with a good shot. "When the near doe put her head down to get a bite, I pulled back the string and aimed at her vital area," "I wasn't paying attention to the other doe, you know. I was locked on the target. Then I shot." Walker watched the illuminated nock of his arrow as it disappeared in the vital area of the doe. He said. "The second doe threw up her head and I saw the nock again. Then she slung her head around and I saw it sort of flying off. "That's when I first thought, 'Could I have shot both deer?'" Indeed, with tracking assistance from his dad later that evening, the two deer were recovered within 75 yards of each other both fatally hit by a single, broadhead-tipped arrow. Larry Castle, chief of game for the Mississippi wildlife agency, said despite the state's one doe per day limit, it was not likely Walker would be cited. A Texas man was seriously injured in a bizarre accident while investigating the damage to his truck after hitting and killing a large whitetail buck on a rural roadway. Authorities said Paul Nash, 45, was stabbed by the deer's antler after a passing vehicle apparently hit the remains of the animal, catapulting the broken tines into the air and into his abdomen. Nash's pickup received considerable front-end damage from hitting the deer and the airbags were deployed. Dazed from the incident, Nash was collecting debris from the road when another vehicle approached. "I don't know whether it was a car or a truck. I didn't see it. I don't know," Nash told a local television station from his hospital bed. And then it hit him. "Something hit me right here in my stomach," he said. "And then I just stood there, and then it started with pain and hurting and I went down." The injured man spent several days in the intensive care unit of East Texas Medical Center in Tyler. Nash considers himself extremely fortunate, as doctors concluded the buck's headgear missed hitting the femoral artery in his leg by less than one inch. A Michigan deer whose head was stuck in a plastic Halloween jack-o'-lantern for nearly a week freed itself and will be fine. Two children found a dented, hair-lined plastic pumpkin in their yard and other neighbors saw a thin deer running free. It was raining, which rescuers think helped the young deer wriggle free. Rescuers had planned to use a dart gun to tranquilize the yearling, then remove the bucket, meant for collecting candy. The bucket was stuck on the animal's snout, hanging like a feed bag, preventing it from eating or drinking. It had appeared to be snagged on the buck's ears or horn buds.
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