Deer encounter

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Today, 8:00 am, Senator Highway, Prescott, Az, 6800 feet altitude.

 

Narrow two lane paved road with almost no shoulders and very twisty, through evergreen woods with a lot of trees and undergrowth right down to the pavement.

 

Sun behind the mountains and trees, and medium heavy overcast making it a medium dark day. 

 

Very little traffic.  Driving 15 mph.

 

I'm scouting for the road to Goldwater Lake picnic ground because I've only been there a couple of times and the road is poorly marked.  I passed the turn-off and the next place to turn around is a bit over a mile.

 

About six hundred yards up the road two mule deer fawns ran across the road right in front of me and I hit the second one.  It was the smaller of the two by about 20%.   I stopped, turned on the flashers and got out with a flashlight and pistol.  Time from contact to getting to the place I hit the deer was maybe eight seconds.  No deer, no visible marks on my car, nothing.

 

Okay, I grew up in Utah and hunted and saw a lot of deer, mostly mulies, hit one the busted a headlight and had to put her down because her back was broken,   but this time there was simply nothing there.

 

Okay, this should have ended this encounter but  a couple of things have been bugging me all day.

 1. These were fawns with very light spots.

2. They appeared to be quite  bit larger than I remember mule deer.

3. Not quite the right time of year for fawns that size...close but not quite right.

4. FINALLY, I have seen a lot of deer all over the country, but most were lighter color from buckskin to light milk chocolate.  These two were VERY dark brown, about the color of strong coffee.

 

Is this normal and I just missed it for eight decades?  Is it connected with their diet?  Have I come across a rarity?  Am I turning into Alpo?

 

Help me out here.  I can't believe it's all that important, but it bugs me enough to wreck what little sleep I get these days.

 

Edited August 30 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[Horace Patootie, SASS #35798]

2 minutes ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

Today, 8:00 am, Senator Highway, Prescott, Az, 6800 feet altitude.

 

Narrow two lane paved road with almost no shoulders and very twisty, through evergreen woods with a lot of trees and undergrowth right down to the pavement.

 

Sun behind the mountains and trees making it a medium dark day. 

 

Very little traffic.  Driving 15 mph.

 

I'm scouting for the road to Goldwater Lake picnic ground because I've only been there a couple of times and the road is poorly marked.  I passed the turn-off and the next place to turn around is a bit over a mile.

 

About six hundred yards up the road two mule deer fawns ran across the road right in front of me and I hit the second one.  It was the smaller of the two by about 20%.   I stopped, turned on the flashers and got out with a flashlight and pistol.  Time from contact to getting to the place I hit the deer was maybe eight seconds.  No deer, no visible marks on my car, nothing.

 

Okay, I grew up in Utah and hunted and saw a lot of deer, mostly mulies, hit one the busted a headlight and had to put her down because her back was broken,   but this time there was simply nothing there.

 

Okay, this should have ended this encounter but  a couple of things have been bugging me all day.

 1. These were fawns with very light spots.

2. They appeared to be quite  bit larger than I remember mule deer.

3. Not quite the right time of year for fawns that size...close but not quite right.

4. FINALLY, I have seen a lot of deer all over the country, but most were lighter color from buckskin to light milk chocolate.  These two were VERY dark brown, about the color of strong coffee.

 

Is this normal and I just missed it for eight decades?  Is it connected with their diet?  Have I come across a rarity?  Am I turning into Alpo?

 

Help me out here.  I can't believe it's all that important, but it bugs me enough to wreck what little sleep I get these days.

 

Well, if you're turning into Alpo, you've got bigger things to worry about :-)

Horace

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Yeah!  Just a thought that's an ongoing nightmare.

[Subdeacon Joe]

1 hour ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

About six hundred yards up the road two mule deer fawns ran across the road right in front of me and I hit the second one.

 

I'm confused. You saw it run across the riad 600 yards in front of you,  but you hit it,

 

That don't make no sense, as Pete would say. 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

No, I wrote that poorly.  600 yards further up the road from where I should have turned off I was going to a place where I could turn around.   A very narrow road for a Senator's Highway. The deer  ran across the road at the same time I got there.

 

There.  That's still not written very well.  I wrote the first one at bed time after a really long day and now it's 4:20 am and the end of a very short night.

 

And you spelled 'road' wrong.

Edited August 30 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[Chicken Rustler, SASS #26680]

I have a theory about deer and recently got a chance to test it. My theory is they instinctively freeze to see if the threat keeps coming toward them and then start to run at the last possible second they could outrun their typical predators. Of course we go faster than their predators so they weait till the last second and jump straight into our bumper. When I got a chance to test it I came around a curve and saw one standing at the edge of the road so I hit the brakes and slowed to around 40 but kept going. Of course it waited until I was almost on it and then bolted, but now when I hit the brakes I slowed down to 25-ish almost immediately and it crossed the road and cleared my car by what seemed like less than a foot. I think if I hadn't reduced speed when I saw it I wouldn't have missed it when it bolted. Anyway that's the theory. 

Now we get to the important part, thanks to Forty Rod. That was one deer, if it had been two I think I would have hit the second. Maybe if it's more than one you need to do something else to scare it into running? 

[Subdeacon Joe]

1 hour ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

And you spelled 'road' wrong.

 

Otto did that. 

 

Thanks for making it make sense.

 

420, eh?  Hmmmm.....

[Blackwater 53393]

Some thoughts that could influence your impression.

 

Narrow rural road lined with trees would make it shady and add overcast to the mix and your perspective might make the deer look darker in color than they actually were. 
 

If the fawns were larger, they could be older and with their spots fading, could also appear darker.

 

You were driving slowly, 15 mph. It’s likely that you bruised the fawn, but doubtful that you did it any real injury.

 

Did you do any damage to your vehicle? If not, the deer is probably fine.

 

IfYOU’RE  turning into Alpo, we’ll be sending “those nice young men in their clean white coats” to see you!

[Stump Water]

Best I can tell we have six fawns in the herd here this year (whitetail).  Four of them are easily twice the size of the other two and their spots are already fading.  Their colors range from a light beige to a dark reddish brown.  The latter being the most typical for summer coat around here.  Their winter coat will be a much darker grayish brown.  Mule deer have the same color variations and seasonal changes.

[Big Sage, SASS #49891 Life]

All the Does don't come into season at the same time. I have been seeing fawns here for the last 10 weeks or so, all sizes. The ones dropped a couple of months ago have lost a lot of their spots, the ones several weeks ago still have almost all their spots. 

Sometimes you think you have hit a deer harder than you actually do, especially fawns because their ar much smaller than a full grown deer. Lets hope that was the case and it was not injured very bad (or not at all)!

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

13 hours ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

Some thoughts that could influence your impression.

 

Narrow rural road lined with trees would make it shady and add overcast to the mix and your perspective might make the deer look darker in color than they actually were. 
 

If the fawns were larger, they could be older and with their spots fading, could also appear darker.

 

You were driving slowly, 15 mph. It’s likely that you bruised the fawn, but doubtful that you did it any real injury.

 

Did you do any damage to your vehicle? If not, the deer is probably fine.

 

IfYOU’RE  turning into Alpo, we’ll be sending “those nice young men in their clean white coats” to see you!

Ah, yes.  Ivy League smoking jackets with wrap around sleeves and buckles in the back.  Most had something stenciled on the front pockets, too.  Good hardy canvas for the sporting crowd.

 

 

They looked really swell with a DA haircut.  

[Eyesa Horg]

But awful inconvenient when ya need to pee!

[Kid Rich]

2 minutes ago, Eyesa Horg said:

But awful inconvenient when ya need to pee!

Sounds like experience speakin to me.

kR

[Eyesa Horg]

Just a guess !!! 🤪

[Dantankerous]

My old friend from New Hampshire would say baa humbug to a deer story. His road collision stories involve moose. 😦 Still sucks no matter what critter you hit. 

 

I know a guy who years back coming home from nightshift very early in the morning while it was still dark, hit a Black Angus broadside which was standing in the middle of the highway. Black bovine, no ambient light, crappy headlights... smacked that cow at 65mph. 

 

Yuk. 

 

Totaled his truck and he said the first deputy to the accident spent some time puking at the mess before being able to complete the accident report. 

 

Not much there looked like a cow anymore and the pick-up looked like a halloween prank gone wrong. 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Dantankerous' buddy's sixty mile an hour into a black Angus sends the cold shivers right down my back bone!

Reminds me too much of a dark night where an Amishman's horse ended up in the back seat of a sedan, details omitted out of a general sense of I-don't-want-to-remember-that-one!

I took a report one time from a shaken motorist who claimed an invisible deer come out of nowhere a'tall, hit his car and disappeared!

Given some of the close calls I've had with Odecoleus virginianus, I'm inclined to believe his testimony!

[Rip Snorter]

College friend back in time hit a big domestic Hog with his MG - totaled the car - no idea how he came out unharmed.  Unexpected Blessings.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

15 hours ago, Kid Rich said:

Sounds like experience speakin to me.

kR

Why would his experience speak to you?

[Kid Rich]

6 hours ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

Why would his experience speak to you?

Because he is an old friend I have known almost as long as I've been shootin Cowboy.

kR

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

An acquaintance went home to northern Idaho for Christmas and his 21st birthday in 1962, both the same day.  His parents had given him a 1963 T-bird convertible.  

 

Driving back to school after dark in a snow storm, he hit Black Angus bull....no idea how fast he was going but the car was destroyed and both the the bull and BJ were killed.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

2 hours ago, Kid Rich said:

Because he is an old friend I have known almost as long as I've been shootin Cowboy.

kR

And why are you shooting cowboys.  What did they do to you?

[Brock]

 

[Finagler 6853 Life]

 

Where do I start.  At the beginning dipstick.  The little slice of heaven I call home, we have numerous whitetails.  They walk right up to the house.  A couple years ago, during hunting season, I was meandering/stalking down one of the trails cut through the woods and I came across a beautiful 8 pointer dead as a pickle along the trail.  For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how this buck came to be lying, dead, in the woods.  It looked perfectly healthy so I proceeded to examine it thinking some other hunter took a shot at it, it ran and died in my woods.  It has happened before.  Not a mark on this old boy.  Rigor hadn't started to settle in so I  thinks maybe the flesh is worth harvesting.  I proceeded to cut through the skin at the belly, not piercing the abdominal cavity, I wasn't ready for that, and as I pull the skin away I can see what looked like bruising.  I proceeded to pull the skin back as I moved up toward the front leg and the bruising became more pronounced and deeper in color.  I surmised that this buck was hit by a car, ran the 100 yards or so from the road down into my woods, laid down and died.  I stopped my skinning operation as I didn't want to risk the unknown of what his organs looked like.  Could have been soup for all I knew.  I went to the shed, got the meat saw, went back and harvested the antlers and skull cap and left the rest for nature to take care of.  The remains were gone in less than 2 weeks.

A deer can take a pretty solid wallop and keep on moving.  If you were only going 15 mph, all you did was ruin its day.  I've seen them hit at higher speeds, get up and take off like a scalded dog.   They might run off and die in the woods like the one I found but around here, no one looses sleep over them as they are plentiful.  Almost a nuisance.  Still hate to have them die that way but it happens.

[Singin' Sue 71615]

Awwwwww....

We can only do what we can. When wildlife runs out into US, well...we just can't change it.

They had to have scampered ofc...you most likely did not do big damage only going 15mph...

Now, our deer have gone from fawn tan to dark grey already...about 3 weeks before normal. I attribute it to drought diet.

[Kid Rich]

21 hours ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

And why are you shooting cowboys.  What did they do to you?

You ever been to Cheyenne  WY during Frontier days? Maybe back in the 60's.

kR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Yeah, I have a couple of times.  I decided to avoid those "re-enactments long ago.  I spent too much time in jobs where I was paid to face real guns with real shooters behind them do it for "fun".

[Stump Water]

Heck, dad had a deer run into him.  A young buck came off the bank and plowed into the side of his truck - right rear quarter panel.  

[Rip Snorter]

Deer running into cars is pretty common out here.  Only good thing is it is usually less damage to the vehicle and the deer often live.

[Eyesa Horg]

I was in basically bumper to bumper traffic traveling at about 40. All of a sudden there was a doe between me and the car in front of me! Ran it over before it actually registered! Dragged at least a hundred feet before I could get to the side of road and it came out from under my truck about 20' before I was at a stop. 4 more hit it before I could drag it out of the road😞. Still amazed that it just ran into a line of cars like that! Ellie's had two broadside her. These were all in Connecticut. Had some close calls here in Vermont as well. If they're going to commit suicide, I'd rather they stroll in front of my deer stand!

[Grumpy Old Man]

A long time ago, I worked at Houghton Sulky in Marion OH. Boss took me to Kentucky State Fair. Wife and I stayed for Hank JR concert. We headed home and saw nothing but deer along the freeway. None of them crossed the road.