I swear I shot that deer in Self Defence
Back in 1969, my father and my uncle went in with one of our neighbors on a family hunting lease in the Pecos River Canyon south of Pandale, Texas. We had 11 hunting aged people in our families that were willing to participate.
This area is in the northern Chihuahuan Desert and looks like a miniature Grand Canyon. The Pecos River has cut a canyon with some walls up to 400 feet above it. The ranch, Marshall’s Spring Creek Ranch, is 20 sections (1 section = 640 acres = 1 square mile). The ranch is split by a big bend in the river. The north-west part has about 3 sections and the south-east part has the other 17 sections. We hunted the ranch over feeders and by walking Sendero (smaller canyons that extend into the main river canyon or into other canyons that eventually extend to the river). The ranch has jeep trails allowing us access to the river and to both sides of the ranch, usually running along the crest of a Sendero except where access is available to move from the crests down to the bottom of a canyon.
Hunting is tough in this area because December temperatures can reach 90 degrees. You are usually walking up or down, seldom flat, over rocks, thick bushes, Prickly Pear Cactus, Cedar trees, Mesquite trees with thorns 2 inches long, and something we called “Dog Cactus”. Dog Cactus grows in bud clusters on the ground that might cover as much as 100 acres. If you walk on Dog Cactus, their thorns have hooks and they will pass step by step from one leg to the other until they climb up your pant legs to your crotch. You haven’t experienced pain until you have pulled a two-inch hooked thorn out of your upper inside thigh. Thorn-proof Boots, Gaiters, or Chaps are mandatory.
One morning, we were hunting the north-east side of the ranch. My cousin Mike was carrying a 308 Winchester lever action rifle. My Cousin Terry was carrying a 243 Winchester bolt action rifle. I was carrying a 300 Savage model 99 lever action rifle. That morning, my father, sister and brother dropped us off at the top of a Sendero. We walked from the top of one Sendero down into the Pecos River. We saw nothing and our frustrations were beginning to show. Then, 4 hours after we were dropped off, they picked us up, down next to the river.
As we were returning to our camp house at about 11:30 am for lunch we came to a part of the ranch that had 3 Sendero running north from the ridge we were on in a series. The Sendero ended at a larger canyon with a ranch road running through it about a mile away.
We hadn’t hunted any of these areas before, so the 3 of us decided to walk the east most Sendero first. My cousins had been very nice to me earlier in the hunt, always taking the position at the bottom of the canyon. Leaving me to walk one side or the other about two thirds of the way up the side. This time I volunteered walking the bottom and let them have the two birds-eye positions on the sides.
My father dropped the three of us off and agreed to pick us up at the ranch road in a couple of hours. We started down, from the south end of the canyon, traveling in a northerly direction. It was rough going. Two or three times my cousins had to stop and wait on me to negotiate places in the bottom of the canyon that were almost impassable. About two thirds of a mile down the Sendero, my cousins spotted several deer. The deer were on the west wall of the Sendero, running around the point of the canyon. Mike was on that wall of the Sendero. He decided to run straight west over the top of the Sendero wall to cut the deer off should they run around the point and double-back up the next Sendero. Terry headed on straight north, off from the east wall to the ranch road. He was able to get a long range shot off at that point and missed.
I moved straight from my position, at the bottom of the canyon, to the top of the point on the west side of the Sendero. I covered over 500 yards, up the steep slope of the Sendero, huffing and puffing all the way. At this point I was pretty sure we would at least be able to see the deer. We had the deer bracketed, parallel to and south of the ranch road.
As I approached the top point of the west wall, right in the middle of all of us, a large clump of mesquite trees came into view. It was about 2 acres in size. It was just south of the ranch road and about 160 yards north of my position (I stepped it off after the incident). It was full of deer, at least 20. A bunch of does, small bucks, and one mature Eight Point White Tail Buck.
At just that precise moment, my father with my sister and brother in the jeep came driving down the ranch road from the west. Deer scattered in all directions.
Now is when it really got interesting. The buck was 160 yards away from me. He was coming straight for me. Deer are not slow animals. They can travel at over 30 mph in rough ground. To make matters worse, he was in direct line with the jeep and my family.
Did you ever hear of a person in an accident saying, “Things felt like they were moving in slow motion”? It may sound strange, but that’s the sensation I got.
As the buck charged me at full speed, I first started hollering. Hoping he would break to the left or right so I could get a shot at him. Then, when that didn’t work, with my Savage Lever-action stock mounted on my right hip, I started hollering and waving my arm and gun hoping to get him to break one way or another. This had absolutely no effect. The buck just ignored my waving. He kept coming straight at me. I didn’t know any better, but I guessed he had figured out I wasn’t shooting and the reason didn’t matter he kept coming at me. At the last possible second, I jumped to the right, stuck the barrel of my Savage rifle in his rib cage behind his left shoulder blade and pulled the trigger.
The buck stumbled twice and folded. I chambered another round and re-positioned myself to get another shot off if I needed it. I didn’t. He was done.
Up until this point, I had remained cool, calm, and collected. Executing my progressive steps much as I had envisioned in logical progression. But, at that moment, my knees turned to jelly. I had to hunker down and breath deeply to regain my composure. I could almost feel those eight points sticking in my chest.
As I shot the buck, I was expecting the expression on his face to change. But it didn’t and I think he had already resigned himself to whatever was going to happen. When I inspected the wound, I found a two-inch diameter circle of burned hair around the bullet hole directly behind the left shoulder blade. He was a good West Texas Eight Point White Tail Buck. Big for that area at about 160 pounds field dressed.
My father was not happy with the amount of time I spent getting the shot off. He came screaming up to me saying: “What took you so long”? I explained: “I couldn’t shoot because the jeep was directly behind him. I didn’t want to kill a family member, too”. He changed his tune and said: “Well I guess you can brag about getting your first
One Shot Kill”.
To this day I never underestimate any wild animal I hunt and every-time I hear people asking how I can shoot those poor defenseless animals I think of what happened to me and laugh.
Defenseless. Ha
