Hunting

Alright - I am going to write about my last hunting experience.

NOTE: IF YOU ARE QUEASY, HEAVY HEARTED, SQUEAMISH, ETC., I WOULD NOT SUGGEST READING THIS POST. IT EXPLAINS THE EVENT THAT CAUSES ME TO NO LONGER HUNT.

I grew up hunting, fishing, etc. All the things they teach us Texas boys. One year, for deer season, we went to Oklahoma to hunt with a guy who worked for my Father. I think I was about 17 or 18.

My Father and I are sitting atop a hill, while my little brother and our friend go into this little wooded canyon area (just a small valley sitting between two hills) to flush a deer out.

While standing there, we see a buck run gingerly out. I say run gingerly because I could have sworn I saw him limping. My father decides to shoot. He hits, but not well - it lands in the buck's rear left leg. It stumbles away, and we rush down to grab it (yelling at our companions, who are sweeping, so they know we are there.)

We see the deer crossing near a fence, my father takes aim again. This time he hits the sweet area (behind the front leg, it should hit the heart). But the deer still survives. It can no longer walk, because its rear leg that was shot first is broken and I assume it has a collapsed lung. It crawls under a barbed wire fence, we pursue.

We wait a moment, and finally my brother decides to give it a kill shot, since it seems to be a tough deer. Aiming for the head from about 10 feet, he fires.

Somehow, the bullet glances off the skull and just destroys the lower jaw. And it survives, STILL.

At this point I am queasy, but getting through it. So our friend/guide, who is as hayseed as one gets - a true Okie, he wanted to take us noodling - pulls out a hand razor, shaped like a talon, that some hunters carry. He goes to the deer and slits its throat.

The deer survives a while longer, with a horrible slurping/gurgling/gagging noise as only blood enters the trachea that has been severed.

At this point I walk away and vomit. I return to the site after about 5-10 minutes, where the deer has died. Everyone is white in the face, except our guide.

We have to drag the deer about a mile. The longest mile I have walked in my life.

Now remember how I thought it was limping as it came out of the grove? Well, when we get back to the house to clean the deer, we notice it looks old and decrepit - not very healthy. As we skin the deer, we notice another wound to the other hind leg - one we didn't cause.

And gangreen covers about a quarter of the carcass, rendering it useless to us.

About 2-3 times since the incident, I have had a nightmare that was nothing but that slurping sound the deer made when its throat was cut.

I am not a member of PETA, and have no reservations about hunting. Things die, its the way it is, and I find nothing unethical about it.

But I have not been hunting since I was 17. I usually make an excuse when invited, like I have to work, but I find one. I don't know that I'll ever try again.

I try to find solace in the fact that the deer had lived with the former injury for weeks and that it was no longer suffering.

But there is little comfort there - that was a horrific final 10 minutes of life. He didn't want to die - I've never seen ANY living thing fight that hard.