Becoming a member of a special fraternity
By By Otha Barham / outdoors editor
Jan. 31, 2003
This week as I contemplated a topic for my column, a story jumped out of current life experiences that screamed to be shared. Here it is.
My deer season began with an easy shot at a huge doe during archery season. I missed the shot because I had selected the wrong arrow for my crossbow in the dark before daylight. It was a too heavy arrow I use to let off the bowstring by shooting it when a hunt is over. The arrow missed the deer low by two feet.
The deer season went downhill from there for me. Here is a list of incursions upon my efforts to bag a whitetail deer this season.
I was sick the whole first black powder season and couldn't hunt.
Loggers cut down all the trees around my best greenfield and left my two elevated shoot houses standing on a barren ridge like lighthouses on a deserted beach.
Hunters appeared from every direction around my other greenfield in Lauderdale County, perhaps because it is in the middle of excellent deer cover. Man scent, frequent disturbances and probably my just plain bad luck kept me from seeing a single deer in that field all season. And I hunted it many times morning and evening.
I hunted day after day for a Kemper County deer that made a huge track and I haven't had a glimpse.
My fields in Smith County are eaten to the ground by herds of deer, not one of which has shown itself to me during hours of waiting and watching.
I hunted excellent spots almost every day in recent weeks without seeing a single deer, except for one baffling aberration when a greenfield I was watching literally filled up with deer. Nine does appeared and I just knew at least one of them would have a lover that was panting impatiently nearby and would surely lose caution and venture forth in front of my rifle. I held fire until dark and no buck appeared. These celibate does grazed on in the moonlight.
Final week
And so this last week of deer season arrived and I was meatless except for a small doe donated by a friend. I couldn't buy a scene with a deer in it until a fine doe walked into a field I was watching on Monday and I lined up my Knight Magnum .50 and aimed to break both her shoulders. My load was a 250 grain Barnes solid copper hollow point pushed by the maximum charge of 150 grains of Pyrodex. The shoulder shot would drop her there so she wouldn't dash into the nearby briar thicket. It was too close to dark for a tracking job.
At the shot, a slight breeze thinned the smoke plume, giving me a clouded view of the deer streaking into the brush at breakneck speed, showing no signs of being hit. My search until well after dark yielded not a trace of blood. I had never had a deer hit up forward in the shoulder area not leave a blood trail, and I was able to follow this deer more than 40 yards before it left the field and a ways into the briars.
I told Al McElroy about the miss and he said it was not likely that I missed the deer. I doubted his assertion because of my fruitless search and how the deer ran. I described every detail about the incident and finally Al said, "I'll take Max out there in the morning and we will find your deer." Readers will remember two stories on this page about Max, the McElroy's legendary Chesapeake Bay retriever, and his recoveries of scores of wounded deer, including some miraculous ones.
Al's bold statement gave me a glimmer of hope, but only a glimmer. I had seen many deer make their death dash after a fatal shot, and this one didn't look right.
Al has written a story about this wonderful animal, Max, that he refuses to call a dog but readily refers to as a member of the family.
Welcome word
I had a commitment the next morning that kept me from a cherished opportunity to see the aging Max work a deer trail. But at mid-morning Al called me on his cell phone from where he and Max were standing over my fat doe. The deer had gone far off into the briars, potholes and thick brush.
I was as happy as a hunter can be, less about bagging a fine deer than having Max find this one for me. His discerning nose and tenacious spirit had once again turned a failed deer hunt into a successful one.
The bullet path in the deer told the story. The entry point was far back in the flank, over two feet from my aiming point at the broadside deer. The bullet angled sharply forward to exit near the opposite side lung. My sluggish eyesight had failed to see the deer turn sharply to the right as I squeezed the trigger and take the shot in a far less fatal area than I intended. The poor hit explained why she didn't fall and why her departure looked like normal running.
Max has retired from regular tracking duties, and had only been used a few times this season retrieving departed deer for both Al and his son Jamie.
And now I have become one of the approximately 100 beneficiaries of Max's exceptional nose, ears and eyes, each now failing him in the sunset of his life. I feel like I have become a member of some privileged order. Strange feeling? Yes, but Max is a very special canine.
