Grab a Buck by the Horns

I’ve spent some time in the woods this year but not nearly as much as I’d like. I’ve had some exciting deer encounters but nothing quite as exciting as what transpired one morning upon arriving at work. I got an early start and rolled in at 6am and didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary.

That is until I got out of my truck and noticed a deer inside the Coast Guard fence. I’ve got no idea how it got in there but upon seeing me it tried to get out. It slammed into the chain link fence and then all was quiet. One of my buddies had a deer do something similar to his fence at home and it the impact actually killed it. I thought maybe that is what happened here.

I walked over to investigate and while the deer was definitely sort of stunned it was well aware it didn’t want to be near me. Some powerful kicks and it was out of the bushes and somehow lodged itself under the front gate. I thought it was either going to free itself of hurt itself trying to do so. I could see that one side of the fence offered a more generous gap. So I set my lunch down and decided that if I could get a grip on the deer that I could slide it down towards the bigger gap and set it free.

Not really the excitement I planned on for the day but I made a quick decision and went with it. Luckily it was a buck (4 pointer) so I had something to grab on. He wasn’t overly thrilled when I grabbed on and then I had to get his leg somewhat unstuck. You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of one of those kicks, the power was incredible. He didn’t fight me hard with his head and neck. I’m not sure what was going through his head but I was thankful.

It must have just taken seconds but I slid him down towards the taller gap in the fence and then pulled him through. I was fully invested then so there wasn’t really any thought about what sort of weirdness might happen when we were standing next to each other on the same side of the fence. He got to his feet so fast when I pulled him through and was off. It was one of those moments of did all that really just happen and it was off to work for the day.

Handling live deer isn’t really something I want to make a habit of but I’m glad the timing worked out for that story to have a happy ending. Hopefully it will send me some good karma for hunting season!

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A Late Start

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Final Day - Houghton Lake