The Deer Family

So I see the guy who does my hay has been out and started work. He’s late getting started. So first thing last night after returning to the farm, I go out in the truck to see how far he’s gotten– not far, but it is a good start. I was particularly interested in seeing if he’d managed to Rotovate the new food plot. The answer was no. Oh well.

I drive into the pasture that will hold the new plot . About halfway along here comes a doe and two fawn in through an opening in the fence and straight out into my path about 40 yards away. The dog and I were transfixed. The doe didn’t seem to mind in the least. She was on her way across the pasture at its narrowest point and took a few steps here and there, but mostly flicked her tail and just took in the sights of a pleasant September evening.

I let my foot off the break for a moment and rolled forward to throw it in Park. That did not faze her, nor her two kids. Then I saw him. There was this big 10 pointer following them. He jumped the fence a few feet closer to the truck and came into the field and stood– biggest deer I’ve seen on the place in almost two years. None of these 4 deer had the least bit of interest in my truck, myself or the dog, and the doe was only mildly annoyed by the buck’s presence. They dawdled going across the pasture and disappeared.

Normally, I’d be thinking the doe and fawns would be hanging with another doe if anything. The buck? This is a tad early in the season for the bucks to be thinking about noogie. The relationship seemed entire platonic, too. It made feel old to watch them. The thought occurred to me how long its been since I had a toddler in the car oogling deer and talking in terms of “mommy deer” and “daddy deer.”

It has also been probably 25 years since I finally figured out a basic truth about deer behavior was sheer rubbish. I don’t know how many of you all started out with this idea but when I started deer hunting, it was widely held that if you see a doe deer, the important thing was to stay completely still, because the bucks send the doe out ahead to scout, poking them in the rear with their antler to get them to cross into the open spaces. I don’t know how many doe I let slip by over the first few years of hunting waiting for that big buck I knew was lurking in the bushes. It took 30 years to finally see it come to pass.

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