Whitetail huntin' in '09

Well, I got my first whitetail of the year last nite ...

Drivin' over to the next town for the sportsmen's club meetin' and ... to make a long story short ... he jumped out between my headlights ...

Got the radiator replaced today, in less than four hours (fortunately, parts store had one in stock) and for a mere $268.64 ...

Of course I've still got a bumper, grille, headlight assembly and miscellaneous trim parts to fix/replace ... but it's driveable again ...

Worst part (aside from a bit of money) wuz that I'd noticed and online ad a few days ago for a '79 Scout, and it was LOCAL!!! And the price wuz (IMHO) REASONABLE!!!

SO ... this a.m. even before I took the Bronco to the garage, I called ... figgered I had a decent excuse to add another Scout to the backyard parking area ...

IT WUZ SOLD!!!

DANG! I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!!!

Gonna need to make plans to eliminate at least $500 worth of venison-on-the-hoof this year, and put a better bumper guard on the front of the vehicle ...

Seems as if I manage to hit a deer every 70-80,000 miles with this vehicle ...

Anyone else knocked down deer or other game lately, with a Ford instead of a firearm? Buick instead of a bullet? Mercury instead of a Mathews?

All of life is six-to-five against, just enough to keep you interested. (Damon Runyan)

Gravity makes all the important decisions ... (John R. Powers)

NRA, REMF, PF, NAHC-L, NAFC-L, KC, NPPA

O Man!
 
Sorry to hear about that!  I've come darn close many, many, many times of getting hit and hitting them, but I have managed to stay out of their way every time, except once. 
 
I was still back in Wisconsin at the time and I was coming around a corner and saw two deer run across the road in front of me.  As I was slowing down to let them pass another deer ran straight at my driver's side door.  This deer was headed right at the window of my door when it ducked at the LAST SECOND and ended up smashing (HARD) into the side of my door! 
 
You want to talk about freaked out!  I have no idea what would have happened if that deer would not have ducked at the last second.  I believe it would have ended up in the cab of my truck and it would have been ugly and messy for the both of us!
 
I hope you are able to get your vehicle fixed soon.
 
Take care and Good Hunting!
 
Best Afield,
 
Steve 

Steve---You think that is scary, listen to this.  Two of my buddies were on their way out to Wyoming to meet me and my other bud that had left a few days ahead of them to hunt antelope before the deer season started.  They decided to drive the 1400+ miles straight through and were coming down the west side of the Big Horns within about 50 miles from our camp late at night.  Luckily, because it was dark and they were on some switchbacks, Dick was going below 50MPH.  All of a sudden from down below them, a big bull elk jumped the guardrail and his rack tore the mirror off the drivers side door and left antler marks in the window, dents along that side of the vehicle and then cracked the front part of the camper they were pulling!  It was lucky that he apparently was at a slight angle from the rear such that he glanced off and did little damage compared to if he had hit them broadside.    Dick was able to get the mirror replaced out there, but had to tow the trailer back to the manufacture in Pittsburgh to have the whole front section replaced.  Then it took awhile to repair all the dents and scratches along the entire length of the truck.  They were lucky in that he could have killed them with a broadside strike as his rack would have probably skewered Dick!!!

Mike Stephenson
aka Topgun----30-06

Mike:
 
That is scary!  Elk are big animals and can do some heavy duty damage.  I'm glad that no one was hurt!
 
Take care and Good Hunting!
 
Best Afield,
 
Steve

They were very lucky that it was a glancing blow!  If he had hit them broadside, I'm sure his rack would have broken the window out and Dick would have been hit with the tines and lost control.  With only a low guardrail if they had gone over it or sheered it off the drop there is hundreds of feet to the next part of the road.  Every time we go by there the guys take a deep breath and make the sign of the cross with a thank you Lord!!! 

Mike Stephenson
aka Topgun----30-06

Ok now I got to know . What happened with the Elk.
 
 

Captain Bill
LM NAHC , Endowment member NRA , Life member ATA
U.S.M.M. Ret. Master of Great lakes

Not a Ford, Buick or Mercury but here is what a head on between a BMWZ4 and a deer looks like....
 
 

 
 

 
 
Hmmm, tasty looking isn't it!!!

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

DAMN!! hope that isn't your car. And if it is...DAMN!!
 
Hope that everyone in the car was alright? I know they only seat two so I also hope the seats are OK! ( if ya know what I mean ) LOL

Hunt Hard, Hunt Safe and enjoy what you got in life
Paul Snyder
LM NAHC,NRA,SCI,DU

Captbill---I doubt that the elk even had a headache from that glancing blow.  In regards to the pictures of the BMW, I don't know that I have ever seen a picture where an animal went into the engine compartment like that---YUCK!!!

Mike Stephenson
aka Topgun----30-06

Actually the engine was very hot and cooked the meat perfectly we just brought out some forks and picked out dinner.... Just kidding, just kidding, it was not my car.  A friend sent that to me but it is a real encounter.  I was surprised that the front end wasn't totaled.  It is nasty stuff though, or as duckwild so eliquently put it...DAMN!!!

I started this thread, but haven't returned except to read new posts for a while ...

Son #1 sent me some pix a couple of years ago, of a deal similar to the Bimmer ... that wuz a small car ... Focus or some such? ... the deer (a Bambi-sized one, sorta?) that came thru the windshield, and most of the carcass ended up in the back seat area, after blowin' out the REAR window as well as the front one (of course) ... bloody mayhem coated the ENTIRE interior of the car, as I recall ... nobuddy seriously injured, IIRC, for some odd chance of fate ...

I doubt if I can find the pix, but I'll take a look ...

I s'pose I should take a foto of the front of my Bronco and post it here ... if I remember to do it before I finish the repairs ... (headlight assembly is on back order ... gotta check with wrecking yards, becuz the best price I can find is about $103, with a high-end MSRP of $300-plus ... )

All of life is six-to-five against, just enough to keep you interested. (Damon Runyan)

Gravity makes all the important decisions ... (John R. Powers)

NRA, REMF, PF, NAHC-L, NAFC-L, KC, NPPA

I once hit an antelope at 77 mph on a two lane highway with no berm, scary......

Old Cowboys never die, they just keep riding the Range.

Back to the '09 Whitetail harvest ...

We got another one ...

This one wuz inadvertent, and no real damage (except nauseated offspring) to anythin' ...

Our gathering this past weekend for the wedding of best friend's daughter (our Goddaughter) had our kids (who've all grown up among this other family, sharin' classes and adventures for most of their lives) arrivin' @ the old house on different schedules ...

So ... Daughter #1 texted me with a question ... is it OK if we make a fire ring in the driveway? (So they could sit around the fire and talk and drink beer and so on ... we've done that many other times, and it wuz a reasonable question ... )

I answered her text with about the second one I've ever sent in my life ... yeah, merely don't burn down the house ... or the town ...

Then I thot I'd call her (a marginal cell signal area) to confirm ... she answered, and after it got quiet enuf to hear, she said, "Whut should I do with that deer?"

Um.

Whut deer?

Our house/garage has a "cubbyhole" about six feet wide and 10-12-feet deep, between the house and the garage, but the back is enclosed for the house entry ...

A deer (one of the several hundred who lived in town all winter, or foraged there during the tuffest of times during our worse-than-average winter) had apparently wandered into the cubbyhole for shelter, and ... never left ...

So ... the kids cleaned up the carcass, mostly with success, but the stink wuz still there when we arrived ... put some cleaner-type spray on it, and it's gettin' better ...

Best line of the weekend (about the deer)?

A brother of the bride wuz heard to say, loudly, "Save me the backstrap!"





(D#1 said that wuz one of the few body parts without maggoty infestation ... but ... no ... she din't "SAVE" it for him ... )

All of life is six-to-five against, just enough to keep you interested. (Damon Runyan)

Gravity makes all the important decisions ... (John R. Powers)

NRA, REMF, PF, NAHC-L, NAFC-L, KC, NPPA

You're gonna have quite a few before deer season ever rolls around!

I got those Beamer picts. before. It said that it happened on the Audibon. i've hit 2 deer, The first was in a major snow storm in central Wis. . I was going about 10 mph and I didn't see it till I hit it. No damage at all. The second I was going about 60 mph down a gravel road in N. Wis.. I was late for work. It ran out in front of me out of nowhere and slipped on the gravel. I ran right over it. No damage.

Except to the deer, right, 'rik?

Yeah, orduck' ... there's still a lotta days (and nites) before the rifle season opens on November 6th ... also a bunch between now and the bow season, which opens in ... um ... August? Nope ... looked it up ... Sept. 4th, this year ...

Should be able to rack up a bunch of 'em, if I drive carelessly and don't pay attention much ...

Could get another this weekend, if I don't get my headlight replaced and hafta drive 230 miles back here in the dark, after the weekend of house repair and weed sprayin' back @ the farm ...

Merely lucky, I guess ... all these opportunities, and none of 'em wasted ...

(Seriously ... we should know before the end of the month about how we did on the lottery draw for this season ... and the muzzleloader session as well ... that's about a five-year wait, even with preference points ... but with all the extra doe tags available, the G&F isn't likely to increase the percentage of tags available for the MZ gang ... they/we can easily use our black powder rigs during the regular season, so there's no real justification to raise the number of licenses ... at least that's whut they tell me ... but ... I'll have a buck tag for the rifle season, even if I don't draw one for Muleys out west, I'll get a gratis landowner and try for one of those 150+ guys we've been savin' ... )

All of life is six-to-five against, just enough to keep you interested. (Damon Runyan)

Gravity makes all the important decisions ... (John R. Powers)

NRA, REMF, PF, NAHC-L, NAFC-L, KC, NPPA

good luck on the draw

ours is all messed up this year - they extended the deadline (from May 15 to June 1)
they said it was because of computer problems, but I read somewhere that application sales were about half of what they "should" have been - I think it's all about the $
so, they can't have those of us who put in on time having better odds - they had to extend it to push for more guys to get in!
anyway, we should have had results any day now - now they're saying by July 1

I usually don't say this, but I hope you miss those deer (until your seasons open)

Tnx, orduck' ... I'm also of the persuasion that I'd as lief not be connected to any more cervine fatalities ... until the seasons open ...

All of life is six-to-five against, just enough to keep you interested. (Damon Runyan)

Gravity makes all the important decisions ... (John R. Powers)

NRA, REMF, PF, NAHC-L, NAFC-L, KC, NPPA