The Shot

ML's brother Bert writes...
The day’s hunt was over and we were on our way to Eddy’s. Bill, Uncle Ed and I had been out this afternoon. Jim had gone to work at noon. It was in the days of the party permit. This was when four hunters got together and got a doe permit [for the group]. [under the party permit] the shooter was required to wear an armband when they shot the deer. This was a rule we always took to heart. [If you shot a deer without a license or the party permit, you were legally a poacher].

As we came around the corner by the dam road there were two deer on the west side of the road. Bill hadn't yet shot a deer so I thought...if I could block them, Bill could get a shot at one. The first problem was to let Bill know what I had in mind since we were in two [separate] cars [and couldn't easily talk to each other].

We got one deer blocked but we were now by Swans house. I told Bill to get out and shoot it. The deer was somewhat cooperating with us. It gave him time to load his gun. The deer then thought better of what was going on and headed for the hills.

If you have ever seen a deer flat out run, with no bounding, you know what speed is. It was going at about 60 degrees to us and 125 to 150 yards out when Bill shot. It looked like a snow blower was turned on as the deer went down. [It was] one heck of a shot.

Then we heard someone behind us. There, in Swans yard, were six people watching us. But Bill was not wearing the arm band. I quickly told him to get it on. One problem, he didn't have it--it seems Jim had taken it with him when he went to work. We sent Uncle Ed to Jim's to get the armband [so we could tag the deer and take it home]

We pulled off the road and unloaded the snowmobile to go get the deer. Before we got going one of the people watching came over to talk to Bill. It seemed that one of them was a reporter for the paper in Rheinlander. He thought that he had just seen the best shot ever and wanted the name of the shooter to write about it. At least it wasn’t a [game] warden watching.

We went out and got the deer. It was placed on the trailer next to the snowmobile and we went to the bar to await Uncle Ed. When he got there Bill put on the armband and I tagged the deer. We were no longer poachers.