Has anyone ever tried to hit a deer?
Many years ago, there was a big buck that was using my farm and the neighbors. This was in the years before trail cameras, and the deer was almost 100% nocturnal. I'd find his tracks on my place, and he was using it at night, then heading back into the neighbors heavy cover. I hunted him a few years, never seeing anything but tracks. One night I was coming home from a second shift at the factory I was working in at the time, and as I topped the hill on the gravel road, the buck was standing in the middle of the road less than a 100 yards in front of me. I was driving a 1979 F-150, 4 speed, with the 300 C.I. six cylinder. I put it in third gear and floored it, determined to run that big SOB down. Instead of leaving the road, the buck was running down it in front of me. I had gotten close enough that I thought I was going to run over him, and was gripping the steering wheel getting ready. That buck left the road, and instead of jumping a 5 strand barbed wire fence, he went through it. I went back and looked the next morning, and there was deer hair all over the ground, and the wire was loose.
As far as I know, that buck died of old age, as no one killed it that I ever heard of. I've thought about how dumb that was to try and run over it, but at the time it seemed like the thing to do. I sure as heck wouldn't try it today with the way trucks are made, with all the plastic on the frontend. That old 79 was all metal, and I wasn't afraid to hit a deer with it like I'd be the 2017 one I drive today.
"Grandpa, you must be a great hunter! Tell us the story about that great big one on the wall!"
