Deer Duel
It was early morning when I left on patrol looking for duck hunters in northern McHenry County. I managed to check some local and out-of-state hunters and proceeded along a county road northeast of Norwich when I came across two deer standing in a stubble field. I noticed something wasn’t right so I stopped to look. They were out some distance standing nose to nose and could see that they both were bucks.
I pulled out my spotting scope to get a better look and noticed their antlers were locked together. This was the first time I had seen two deer locked together and was contemplating how to get them apart. I called a neighboring warden to see if he was able to help me out, but he was nowhere near the area. I called a couple other wardens, but nobody was close by. I decided to go out and get a better look at them to see if it was even possible to get them apart. I could see that they were locked at a 90-degree angle, and they were not at all out of energy. Both decided to run into a shelter belt and didn’t want me anywhere near them. I managed to get a few pictures and evaluate the situation.
They decided to run again, across a road, down an abandon railroad line and along a pasture fence. As I drove down the rail line, I could see there was a bridge that I was not going to cross with my vehicle. The fence came right up to the bridge, and I didn’t know how the deer were going to get out of the corner. Suddenly, they stumbled over the fence and couldn’t get up. Both deer were upside down and still locked together. I had some rope and a bone saw with me, and I was going to attempt to cut them apart. I managed to tie up three legs of one deer without getting kicked. I grabbed a bone saw and cut off the one antler that was keeping them locked together. The cut antler fell to the ground, but both deer laid there liked they were still locked together. I grabbed the untied leg of the buck I had tied up and pulled him away from the other deer. The smaller buck, which was no slouch, realized they were apart and immediately ran underneath the bridge and was out of sight.
At that point I had a one antlered buck laying there which had seven points on the one side with three of his legs still tied up, not realizing when I pulled the deer toward me that the rope I had tied him up with had slid underneath his body. Every time I reached for the end of the rope his head would lean toward me with the one antler he had. Not a good feeling. I managed to hold his head back with the bone saw, grab the rope and give it a pull. The knot came untied, the deer jumped to his feet and ran underneath the bridge as well.
Lying on the ground was my souvenir – the antler I had cut off which also had seven points. I gathered my rope and saw, and climbed to the top of the railroad line and never saw the one antlered buck again. The other deer that was locked together with the 7x7 was a 4x4. He was swimming in the slough on the other side, and was so exhausted that he laid down on the shoreline to rest.
I checked the next day for the 4x4, but he was gone. Within that month I saw two other sets of bucks that were locked together, but neither had the same excitement as the first.
- District Game Warden Alan Howard