Getting Gored

When you shoot a wild animal, always make sure its unable to move before you go up to it to cut its throat. Look at this scar on my left arm. The tine of one antler went clear through it. And this one on my ribs, one inch to the right and another tine would have gotten my left lung. You were so young you probably don't remember, but I was deer hunting one fall with Kyle Brewer and Sherman and Ed Adams on Limestone Mountain when I got gored. Kyle shot a big buck Mule Deer, but he gut shot it and it didn't go down. We all spread out to look for the animal. I found blood, and followed the trail. The buck crossed the bottom of the canyon and traveled about a half mile before it stopped. I spotted it walking slow across the canyon with its head down. With just a 25-35 Winchester, I tried a long shot to finish it off. But the bullet fell low at that distance, and I broke its right back leg.

Nevertheless, it went down, and figuring it was dead, I crossed the canyon to dress it out. I leaned my rifle against a big rock, took out my knife and walked up to cut its throat. I had just grasped an antler to pull its head back and get my knife to its throat when it jumped to its feet and charged me. I couldn't believe that with only three legs and gut shot it could move so fast. It knocked me down, and gored me, working its head back and forth to drive the tines into my body. In one sense, I was lucky it was such a big buck with such a huge rack. I could still bend my left arm, even with the tine run clear through it, and grab the top tines of its right antler. With a smaller buck, I might not have been able to get hold of it. With my right arm I grasped the left antler and bull dogged the buck toward my left arm, because its right back leg was broken and it couldn't stand on it. When it fell over I got out from under it, and held it to the ground until I figured it was dead. I got my rifle and fired a couple of shots in the air so the other two hunters could find where I was. When they got there I told them I wasn't hurt so bad that they couldn't dress the deer out before we climbed out of the canyon and walked back to the car. So, they dressed out the deer, but left it until after they drove me into the hospital for treatment. Then they went back and carried the buck out. Kyle told the newspaper that the buck weighed about three hundred pounds. If it did, that would be the biggest buck deer I ever saw. I don't know what they did with the head. I never asked. I suppose Kyle or one of the Adams' hung the antlers on a wall somewhere. Maybe it was so heavy, they just cut it off and left it in the canyon.

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