Aren’t you supposed to catch them??

by Harry Moran

My youngest brother has always been a little on the wild side. An experience he had while deer hunting still brings me a good laugh each time I think of it. Jerry was hunting with a friend, on an old abandoned farm, up in the Romney, West Virginia area. He was hunting near the old empty farm house, as he started out that day. The previous occupants of the home had endured constant damage of their home garden by the many deer in the area, so they had built a chicken wire fence nearly ten feet high around the garden area. One side had fallen down, after years of neglect. As Jerry and his hunting companion entered the edge of the woods near the house, Jerry spotted a doe in the woods. This was long before there was a legal doe season, in West Virginia.

The doe was acting very strange. It seemed to be having a lot of trouble seeing. It stumbled and ran into things. Jerry, who is always curious, started to try to get as close as he could to the doe. It winded him, and tried to get away from the area. Again it ran into trees and brush it apparently couldn’t see. It was using smell and sound to guide itself, as much as possible.

Jerry and his hunting partner managed to get the doe out into the clearing around the house. Then Jerry had an idea. He pulled out the rope he always carried to hoist a killed deer or help drag one back to camp. He and his buddy slowly drove the doe into the garden area. As they pursued the deer, it finally became contained in the remaining chicken wire fenced area. After a lot of chasing, Jerry managed to get a rope on the trapped deer’s neck. With him pulling and his buddy wrestling the deer, they got it down. They hog-tied the doe as quickly as possible.

After they got a good look at it, they realized that what they suspected was true. The doe was blind. Not wanting to break any laws and thinking that a DNR person should look at the deer, they loaded it in the back of Jerry’s old LTD station wagon.

They headed for the nearest game check location, which was a little country store about five miles away. When Jerry arrived there, the local conservation officer was on site. He looked at the doe and determined the animal had contracted "pink eye" which had blinded it. He told Jerry that the animal should be killed. He also advised him there would be nothing wrong with the meat. Jerry and his buddy wanted the venison, so the conservation officer wrote out a paper explaining the circumstances, so Jerry could drive back through Virginia to Martinsburg, without having a problem if he was stopped. He told Jerry to bring the hide and head back to the game checking station on their way back to Martinsburg, so he could turn it in for research.

With the doe still alive in the back of the station wagon, Jerry headed back to the camp on the farm. On the way back, they came upon four or five hunters at their vehicles about to eat lunch. After slowing down, Jerry rolled the window down and asked them if they had got a deer yet. They all replied that they had not. One of the hunters asked Jerry if he had got one. Jerry mischievously replied "Yeah. It’s in the back." The hunters all went to the back of the station wagon and Jerry pressed the button to lower the window above the tail gate. As they leaned in to see the deer, it raised its head. One of the hunters yelled out, "That thing is alive!" Jerry replied, "Of course it is. You’re supposed to catch ‘em aren’t ya?" With that he just slowly drove away, leaving the hunters scratching their heads in amazement. Jerry and his buddy laughed all the way back to the camp. I suppose the hunters are still wondering about what they saw that day.

 

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