by John Jefferson

I received a puzzling message from the highly respected National Deer Association (NDA) this week. Apparently, some hunters in other states feel banking a large number of does can improve your buck hunting. I’ll explore the message further down.

But that took me back to my first deer. It’s an unusual story.

In 1962, I had been on only been on one deer hunt — a $20-day hunt near Oak Hill. All I saw were goats.

A friend from grad school invited several of us to hunt does on his family’s ranch in Mason County. I had bought an Army surplus Swedish Mauser in 6.5×55 caliber and “sportarized” it into a beautiful and extremely accurate rifle. I was the rookie of the camp – the others had deer hunted for years. One scoffed at my un-scoped rifle with its iron sights.

That afternoon, they put me in a tree stand and said when shooting time was over, to follow a dry creek bed north until I saw the cabin lights.

To avoid getting lost, I started my hike at sundown.

I kicked a rock in the creek bed, and a deer’s head popped up on the hillside, silhouetted against the skyline’s fading light. I dropped to a kneeling position and checked for antlers with my binoculars. No antlers — a doe I could shoot.

I was fairly calm. I squeezed the trigger carefully. The doe disappeared. Then its head popped back up. How could I have missed? I thought I shot better than that! I chambered another round, and carefully fired. The deer dropped. I relaxed. Then its head popped up AGAIN!

I knew I would be the butt of insults around the supper table. I took a deep breath, let half of it out, and slowly squeezed steel. The deer went down. And stayed down. Another hunter helped me field dress it and tote it to camp.

The next day, they found a second dead deer, also shot through the heart, near where the first one fell. Blood from a THIRD one was nearby, but no carcass. They presumed from the two heart shots that the third one probably died in the brush. The verbal jabs began to cease.

But back to whether we should shoot does, I thought that had been settled back in the fifties and sixties. Every wildlife authority I know believes we should. Unless we do, the does will overpopulate and will decimate the habitat. Then, all deer will possibly be somewhat stunted and antler development retarded from lack of protein during spring antler growing time.

In re-reading the NDA message, I saw they quoted what hunters formerly thought: “If you shoot a bunch of does, you won’t see any bucks!”

In case some still think that way, NDA stated, “Scientific research has shown repeatedly that this just isn’t accurate. Protecting and stockpiling does will not draw bucks from other areas and having too many does around is actually counterproductive to your ability to see and hunt bucks.”

JJ