CONTINUING FROM YESTERDAY.....
The snowflake that had hit me between the eyes, melted immediately from the warmth of my skin. The moisture ran down the bridge of my nose and and fell to the ground in two drops, off the end of my nose. Hercules was fairly easy to track for the first quarter of a mile. His distinct left hind foot track made it pretty easy to distinquish him from the dozens of other deer tracks we were seeing. We split the track, Tom walking on one side and me on the other, being careful to never walk directly in his track, so that we could always back up and look at it again, if we got confused about the direction the big buck was moving. As a prey animal, deer have 2 immediate responses in time of attack and stress, whether it be from man or from a natural preditor. First, is their flight instinct......to run.....to get away from whatever is trying to hurt them. Hercules had done just that and he had done it very well. After jumping the fence, the wide distance between his tracks showed that he was running for the first 300 yards or so. I think he must've known that he was safer inside the refuge, for he soon settled into a quick walk. We were still finding drops of blood occasionally, although they were become less visible in the snow and less plentiful....the bleeding was slowing down and beginning to stop.....which would make it harder for us to track him. "I think he must've just taken a grazing shot," Tom said. "Maybe across the top of his back and along his spine, damaging the nerves to his left hind leg. He's bleeding less now and it may have just opened his hide a little." We walked a little further, our flashlights swinging from side to side in a sweeping motion, looking for any sign of his track or more blood. "Or," I countered, "He was hit a little lower and the slug went into the thigh muscle and clipped some of the connecting tissue, making it hard for him to raise his back leg." An hour had now passed and we were probably 1/2 mile into the refuge. It had been at least 2 1/2 hours since Hercules had been shot. The second response for a deer....especially if it's hurt....is to find a place to hide and lay down. I've seen big bucks, crawl on their bellies to get in under thickets and completely camoflague themselves when wounded. Hercules would do the same. Many times, if it's a fatal wound, the deer will find a place to hide and rest and then get stiff and not be able to get back up.....sometimes even bleeding to death in their hiding spot. Hercules's wound didn't seem like a fatal one to us.
With every step it was becoming harder to track Hercules. The unrelenting snow was till coming down in huge flakes and any track or blood that he was leaving, was being obliterated in the calm, cold night air. Several times, I would have to stop and just stand still....turning off my flashlight because the snow, coming down so hard in the light beam of my flashlight, would tend to make me dizzy....much like driving in a snow storm with your headlights on high beam does. So, we would stop and listen.....hoping to hear Hercules make a movement in the brush....but we heard nothing of him. An owl would sometimes fly low and near us, from overhead and the occasional rabbit would scurry out of his burrow and across our paths, as our flashlights startled him. The night was still and calm deep inside the confines of the refuge. No sounds from the outside world could make it through the trees and hills this deep into the timber.
Suddenly, Tom gave a shout! "Hey, look at this!" It was new, fresh track from Hercules. We had turned just a little, after rounding a cedar tree and Tom had seen the track in the deep, fresh snow. Hercules had been laying under the boughs of the cedar tree....resting and trying to regain his strength. Our approach, had spooked him and sent him out......ahead of us somewhere in the cold, black of the night. There were still small droplets of fresh blood near the tracks, but much less than we had seen before. His wound was beginning to clot and soon he would leave no more blood track for us to follow. We figured we were 10-15 minutes behind him. That's as close to Hercules as we ever got.
The snow never did let up that night and by morning we had another 8 inches of snow on the ground. We continued on with our search for Hercules for another 2 hours....bouyed by the success of finding where he had hidden, we were sure we could catch up to him. But eventually, his tracks faded and the blood trail faded out again. We moved on, our foot steps making hardly any noise at all in the fresh powdery snow. My flashlight battery went dead and I had to bring out my backup light. Finally, at 10pm, we reached the dry creek bed that in the spring and summer fed into the upper end of 4 Meetings Lake. We had made it to the other side of the refuge in 4 hours. We had stopped a few times to rest, but plodding through the sometimes deep snow had worn us both out. My legs burned and trembled a bit as we stopped to decide what to do. "I think we should call it quits," I told Tom. " If he's laying down somewhere, we'll never find him now and he may be dead already. If not, he'll mostly likely make it....our pushing him around will have kept him from getting stiff and he should be able to get back up again.....if he's stopped bleeding, it might not be a fatal wound." Tom agreed. We had given it a good try and had come pretty close to Hercules a couple of times, but it was late and at this point we had lost his track over an hour ago and had no idea where he was. We agreed to pack it in.
The dry creek bed was a pretty easy walk to the road and then it was only a mile walk on the road back to where we had parked our pickups. It was now 11:15pm, still snowing hard with those huge flakes and I was ready to be in my warm bed. By midnight, my head was on my pillow, the covers drawn tight up under my chin.
In the last week of June, the following year, I got another call from Tom. He had seen Hercules inside the refuge. He had made it and was alive! Tom said that while he wasn't very close to him, he couldn't see any sign of the wound on Hercules's left hind quarter. He did notice, that he did have an unusual gait when he walked....dragging his left hind foot just a little. Hercules had survived the wound and the natural predators that would have liked to taken advantage of him in his state of injury. A couple of years later....on another cold snowy winter day, I was driving on the gravel road that runs along the wildlife refuge. I stopped at the spot where the young hunter had taken a shot at Herules and where Tom and I had started our journey on that cold snowy night. I crawled over the fence and walked into the timber for a ways. It took me a few minutes, but I finally found what I was looking for. There, mingled in with all the other deer tracks, was Hercules' distinctive drag foot track. He was still alive 3 years later. I suspect that Hercules never left the refuge area during the daylight after being shot, preferring to cross into the cornfield at night, when no hunters were around. Old bucks, don't get to be old bucks, by being foolish. I don't know what ever happened to Hercules. I never saw him again. But that day, seeing his drag foot track in the snow and knowing that he had survived to pass along his execellent genes to several more generations.....made me smile.
The snowflake that had hit me between the eyes, melted immediately from the warmth of my skin. The moisture ran down the bridge of my nose and and fell to the ground in two drops, off the end of my nose. Hercules was fairly easy to track for the first quarter of a mile. His distinct left hind foot track made it pretty easy to distinquish him from the dozens of other deer tracks we were seeing. We split the track, Tom walking on one side and me on the other, being careful to never walk directly in his track, so that we could always back up and look at it again, if we got confused about the direction the big buck was moving. As a prey animal, deer have 2 immediate responses in time of attack and stress, whether it be from man or from a natural preditor. First, is their flight instinct......to run.....to get away from whatever is trying to hurt them. Hercules had done just that and he had done it very well. After jumping the fence, the wide distance between his tracks showed that he was running for the first 300 yards or so. I think he must've known that he was safer inside the refuge, for he soon settled into a quick walk. We were still finding drops of blood occasionally, although they were become less visible in the snow and less plentiful....the bleeding was slowing down and beginning to stop.....which would make it harder for us to track him. "I think he must've just taken a grazing shot," Tom said. "Maybe across the top of his back and along his spine, damaging the nerves to his left hind leg. He's bleeding less now and it may have just opened his hide a little." We walked a little further, our flashlights swinging from side to side in a sweeping motion, looking for any sign of his track or more blood. "Or," I countered, "He was hit a little lower and the slug went into the thigh muscle and clipped some of the connecting tissue, making it hard for him to raise his back leg." An hour had now passed and we were probably 1/2 mile into the refuge. It had been at least 2 1/2 hours since Hercules had been shot. The second response for a deer....especially if it's hurt....is to find a place to hide and lay down. I've seen big bucks, crawl on their bellies to get in under thickets and completely camoflague themselves when wounded. Hercules would do the same. Many times, if it's a fatal wound, the deer will find a place to hide and rest and then get stiff and not be able to get back up.....sometimes even bleeding to death in their hiding spot. Hercules's wound didn't seem like a fatal one to us.
With every step it was becoming harder to track Hercules. The unrelenting snow was till coming down in huge flakes and any track or blood that he was leaving, was being obliterated in the calm, cold night air. Several times, I would have to stop and just stand still....turning off my flashlight because the snow, coming down so hard in the light beam of my flashlight, would tend to make me dizzy....much like driving in a snow storm with your headlights on high beam does. So, we would stop and listen.....hoping to hear Hercules make a movement in the brush....but we heard nothing of him. An owl would sometimes fly low and near us, from overhead and the occasional rabbit would scurry out of his burrow and across our paths, as our flashlights startled him. The night was still and calm deep inside the confines of the refuge. No sounds from the outside world could make it through the trees and hills this deep into the timber.
Suddenly, Tom gave a shout! "Hey, look at this!" It was new, fresh track from Hercules. We had turned just a little, after rounding a cedar tree and Tom had seen the track in the deep, fresh snow. Hercules had been laying under the boughs of the cedar tree....resting and trying to regain his strength. Our approach, had spooked him and sent him out......ahead of us somewhere in the cold, black of the night. There were still small droplets of fresh blood near the tracks, but much less than we had seen before. His wound was beginning to clot and soon he would leave no more blood track for us to follow. We figured we were 10-15 minutes behind him. That's as close to Hercules as we ever got.
The snow never did let up that night and by morning we had another 8 inches of snow on the ground. We continued on with our search for Hercules for another 2 hours....bouyed by the success of finding where he had hidden, we were sure we could catch up to him. But eventually, his tracks faded and the blood trail faded out again. We moved on, our foot steps making hardly any noise at all in the fresh powdery snow. My flashlight battery went dead and I had to bring out my backup light. Finally, at 10pm, we reached the dry creek bed that in the spring and summer fed into the upper end of 4 Meetings Lake. We had made it to the other side of the refuge in 4 hours. We had stopped a few times to rest, but plodding through the sometimes deep snow had worn us both out. My legs burned and trembled a bit as we stopped to decide what to do. "I think we should call it quits," I told Tom. " If he's laying down somewhere, we'll never find him now and he may be dead already. If not, he'll mostly likely make it....our pushing him around will have kept him from getting stiff and he should be able to get back up again.....if he's stopped bleeding, it might not be a fatal wound." Tom agreed. We had given it a good try and had come pretty close to Hercules a couple of times, but it was late and at this point we had lost his track over an hour ago and had no idea where he was. We agreed to pack it in.
The dry creek bed was a pretty easy walk to the road and then it was only a mile walk on the road back to where we had parked our pickups. It was now 11:15pm, still snowing hard with those huge flakes and I was ready to be in my warm bed. By midnight, my head was on my pillow, the covers drawn tight up under my chin.
In the last week of June, the following year, I got another call from Tom. He had seen Hercules inside the refuge. He had made it and was alive! Tom said that while he wasn't very close to him, he couldn't see any sign of the wound on Hercules's left hind quarter. He did notice, that he did have an unusual gait when he walked....dragging his left hind foot just a little. Hercules had survived the wound and the natural predators that would have liked to taken advantage of him in his state of injury. A couple of years later....on another cold snowy winter day, I was driving on the gravel road that runs along the wildlife refuge. I stopped at the spot where the young hunter had taken a shot at Herules and where Tom and I had started our journey on that cold snowy night. I crawled over the fence and walked into the timber for a ways. It took me a few minutes, but I finally found what I was looking for. There, mingled in with all the other deer tracks, was Hercules' distinctive drag foot track. He was still alive 3 years later. I suspect that Hercules never left the refuge area during the daylight after being shot, preferring to cross into the cornfield at night, when no hunters were around. Old bucks, don't get to be old bucks, by being foolish. I don't know what ever happened to Hercules. I never saw him again. But that day, seeing his drag foot track in the snow and knowing that he had survived to pass along his execellent genes to several more generations.....made me smile.
I can't stand shopping. unless it's on the internet. Malls and dept stores freak me out most of the time.....