I got up early one morning and headed out. Hunting in the Duffield area of Alberta Canada. It was still dark when I got to where I was going. So I wandered real slow through the field. Not much snow, but crunchy, crunchy ground, frozen couple of inches of snow. Just starting to break daylight and the grass was really deep too, all the way up to my chest and white with the sheen of frost. I was hunting in a spot where years before I had given up a shot on what was a trophy buck. This giant ‘190s buck was moving away from me and would not stop or turn to give me a clean kill shot. So hoping there would be another chance one day, I let them go. The Chance came for my friend and hunting partner Chris who has that beautiful trophy Buck on his wall to this day. So every time I go to his house, I have to look at the big beautiful buck I missed out on and somehow try to be happy for my friend as well as with the fact that I made the right decision.
Anyways, back to the story. This is good deer country and maybe I’ll see another trophy Whitetail buck. It’s just breaking daylight and I could see there were a few doe’s out in the one field that had been cut. In the adjacent field of brush and tall grass, there was a strip of small willows and I could see antler tips bobbing along just above the grass and willows. So I went down to one knee to try to steady myself for a shot but of course, in the tall grass that didn’t work. I needed to be higher, not lower. So I stood up and decided to freehand it, with no gun rest. The distance was about 120 yards so not bad but when you’re huffing and puffing from walking along and trying to take a shot freehand, well that’s kind of stretching it out there a wee bit. I took a couple of breaths and studied myself. I shot many deer and other game at this range and was confident I’d make a clean shot. Since most of the deer was obscured by the tall grass, with only his head sticking out… At that distance, I wasn’t going to go for a headshot. I lined up my crosshairs on his head, dropped them down to the level of his chest and over to the breadbasket heart shot. I had a good gun they didn’t shoot too fast and I knew the heavy bullet would be able to pass through the grass without deflecting. A little shaky, but with the exact, right timing, boom I pulled the trigger in the shot rang out. The deer just dropped instantly. Oh, I thought, great all done. So I walk around this little bit of a slew that was between him and I and I’m coming up and I can see it laying there. I was about 10 yards away from him, right by the small willow patch and with my slow approach and detoured walk, I figured about 10 minutes passed by. Looking at the deer, I saw no movement, no chest moving from breathing, not a leg kicking…nothing. So with no other spot to place my rifle, I leaned it up against the willows, took off my jacket and turned around to approach the dead deer. As I turned I saw the most incredible, unexpected and scary thing I had ever seen. For one split second, it seemed as if time slowed down. I barely had time to move my hands up in front of my belly and catch those antlers squarely in my hands, not 3 inches from my guts. that deer was alive and well and hell-bent on revenge.
That SOB laid into me like 10 miles of bad road. I’m 6 foot tall, 250 pounds and it was everything I could do to keep from being impaled as he pushed me backwards. I pushed back as hard as I could and let me tell you when you’re in a life-and-death situation the adrenaline kicks in and you become stronger than you ever thought you could be. But the same was true for the deer. If I ran out of steam, he would run me through and I could tell, he wasn’t about to lose this fight. I twisted on his neck with every bit of power and strength, to know avail. I thought like in the movies perhaps I could break his neck but he was much stronger than that. At times I made headway and pushed him back a few paces, wow I heard him suck air dig his feet and push back on me, pushing me back a few paces. The smell, the sound, the feeling of everything seemed magnified as I truly worried that I would be killed. This went on for some time. It’s really hard to tell but I would estimate over 10 minutes we pushed back and forth, round and round. And I swear that tall grass was completely laid flat and the earth torn up from feet and hooves, for a circumference of about a 20-yards .
Nothing I did would discourage that deer from pushing harder and I could tell that his endurance was better than mine. What can I do? How can I turn the tide on this losing battle? I had my skinning knife in its sheath on my belt, but with both hands on those antlers, how was I to reach it? Holding one antler, jamming my elbow into the other side I moved my left hand and pulled my knife. I came around the side and stabbed him right in the neck. Instantly he stopped pushing and took two steps back in that split second he looked at me with wide eyes and then lowered his head once more. My rifle had gotten knocked over during the fight and I had been mentally keeping track of it as I knew it was my ultimate defense. This one-second break would afford me the time to potentially get it. I turned and dove for the rifle and although I’m 250 pounds I’m sure I flew through the air at least 15 feet. Landing on my belly right in front of the rifle I grabbed it, loaded a bullet and spun around to fire point blank into the chest of that deer that was already coming down upon me.
Well, the hitting power of that rifle at that range was extreme. The fight was over as he dropped dead to the ground. I fell back into the snow with the greatest feeling of relief I’ve ever had. With my body screaming for oxygen, my lungs breathing as hard as they could. Adrenaline and shock caused my hands and body to shake. I lay there, looking at the sky with one eye still on the deer, and thanking God that I was alive. It took quite some time to recover from that and find the energy to field dress and pull that deer out of there. He was a nice buck. Four points on each side, not a trophy size but his antlers are on my wall. He may not have been the biggest deer I ever shot, but he definitely was the toughest
