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crabcreekhunter
Guest
True story. About 1990 I was hunting a particular 5x5 muley that had been snacking on our ranch in Eastern Washington. One morning I spotted the boy high-stepping accross a sage flat and into a small grove of Russian Olive, from which he didn't emerge. Figuring he bedded for the day, I put the wind in my face and slowly slipped into the tree grove. I wasn't ten feet into the shadows when I nearly tripped over a bedded doe. Busted! Our eyes twinkled at each other with love for a split second, then she roosted straight away from me like a 500cc dirt bike leaving the starting line at a National MX race. She didn't carry any other deer with her. I remained frozen, just listening and scanning into the shadows for the buck. Maybe 5 minutes later I took a few steps forward then heard the distinct sound of a muley pogo-sticking away from the tree grove to my right. In about 10 leaps I cleared the trees and saw the 5x5 smoking straight away from me accross a salt grass flat heading back the direction from which I had approached the trees. About 100 yards out the saltgrass funneled into a cattail patch. He and I both knew that if he beat my bullet to the cattails he was home free. As he entered the cattails, my duplex was rolling up his backside and the old 270 rocked just as it crossed his head. I could tell it rolled him, and I knew it was terminal. I walked up to where he entered the cattails and went into the patch. After about ten feet the cattails opened up into another small salt grass flat about twenty feet in diameter. This flat was surrounded by cattails, except for the west side which was the bank of Crab Creek. I entered this opening from out of the south side cattails. Looking to my left I could see the buck laying in the water of Crab Creek with it's head down, but propped up out of the water on some reeds. I looked at him for a few seconds, head shot dead I figured. Then I unloaded my rifle and leaned it up against the cattails on the south side of the small salt grass flat about 15 feet from the buck. I aimed to grab him by the rack and drag him up onto the dry saltgrass flat for dressing. When I was about eight feet from the boy I got the biggest surprise of my life. His eyes were closed! Then they opened! Then I got an even bigger surprise. His head snapped up and he looked right at me! Then he exploded out of the creek in a full blown rack down charge aimed to hit me about in the knees. I will always remember my thought, which was "I am in real trouble." The power that mature buck put into that charge would rag-doll the toughest human alive. I was in for a real good antler whipping. Then, just about the time he was going to connect he kind of went cork screwing past my right knee and piled up about 20 feet away in the cattails on the northside of the saltgrass. What the heck? He missed! Then here he came again. I didn't have a chance to move before he covered the 20 feet, but about half way through the second charge he dipped off to my right again and rolled into the cattails on the south side of the grass flat just missing my Remington. When he missed this second charge, I realized that the bullet had hit him somewhere off dead noodle, probably close to an ear and taken out his equilibrium. He got turned around from his second pile-up and took off at me a third time. Now I had his number down. I stepped to my left like a matador, and the buck went past on my right for the final time. He crashed back into the creek in exactly the same spot where he was first laying and just sat still. I backed away from him, retrieved my rifle, dropped in a round, and finished the fight. Upon examination, the bullet had traveled along the left side of his skull damaging his inner ear as first suspected. I am very lucky to walk away from that kill sight, it may just as easily been mine. Now very few hunters will have an experience where a wounded deer will show that kind of aggression. I made mistakes. I took for granted that I'd killed him with a head or upper spinal shot, because I was 100% positive that I put my bullet in that zone. Then assumed that a high velocity expanding boat tail is going to kill every time you place it in that zone, because it always had in the past. I didn't even think that he might not be dead as I approached him. Then I should have looked at his eyes before I approached. I remember seeing his closed eyes for a split second before they opened and just starting to think that something was different with this buck. I almost believe that buck was faking dead, and he was waiting for me to get in range, because as soon as his eyes opened he was charging, like pre-meditated. Know this and learn this. We've seen some video footage of so called aggressive pet deer knocking people around for what ever reason. They are playing. When you watch rutting bucks fighting and pounding the hair off each other, which gets pretty violent at times, it's not for the kill. If you want to know what kill mode looks like with a mature wild mule deer buck, it was filmed years ago and shown on the opening captions for Walt Disney TV Series. A cougar was backing a mule deer buck up and planning on making a meal out of him. When that buck realized he was cornered and gonna die, he hit that cat before it could even flinch and did a pile drive number on him that makes NFL linebackers look like barbies. They are bad when cornered. Do not get complacent when approaching them. Look at the eyes from binocular range. Make sure they are open. Do not ever approach them if they are closed. They are not bambies or barbies. Dan