October 30th 2016
This Deer literally means more to me than I think I can begin to explain. I am thankful to him for giving his life to feed and nourish my family naturally. To me this wasn’t about a barbaric need to kill something to prove I am a man, surprisingly it’s very opposite. You 
see, it was a personal victory in typical Dan fashion that didn’t come without some sort of a story of internal suffering and turmoil. It doesn’t make me feel like a man to pull a trigger from 300 yards on an unsuspecting creature to watch it die; only for it to live on my wall for my bragging rights on what a great hunter I am. My personal victory was hiking all over a mountain side struggling to put quality footsteps together one after the other chasing a masterful and elusive creature while pushing myself to new undefined physically changing limits with Parkinson’s. This is a tribute to a beautiful animal that will forever be in my family as a monument of the very real struggle to survive and Never Give Up!
A lot of people think of Deer hunters as beer drinking crazed rednecks driving around and leaning over the hood of their vehicle or leaning out the window of a pickup with a rifle. Inevitably, later driving right up to a dead buck to throw it into the bed of a truck and head to a butcher.
I really enjoy being outside and hiking and just being In nature much more than the pulling of any trigger. I also now honestly look at the health benefits of eating purely organic wild game instead of processed meat full of hormone injections and raised on grain and feed, made out of who knows what kind of chemicals in a very disease infested world. In today’s very dysfunctional Political state I believe I am very cognizant and aware of my second amendment and know I’m one of the good one’s with my firearms.
It was early on Saturday morning when my friend Mike and I left the warmth and comfort of my truck into the cold darkness and headed up the face of an Idaho mountain. At about 7:45 half way up the hillside Mike and I first ran into several Elk. We were pinned down on the side of a hill by a wary cow who repeatedly “alarm barked” at us from several hundred yards away warning other animals in the vicinity to be on guard. As I tried to remain motionless on the side of an exposed hillside we saw my buck’s rack crest the skyline in the distance through the early morning fog. I watched him for several minutes waiting for a clear shot then finally slowly raised my rifle and took a very ethical 270 yard shot. However, holding steady with nerves affected by Parkinson’s disease is something that is not easily done these days. Bang! And then the unmistakable immediate WHACK sound of a bullet hitting its target. “You got him,” my buddy exclaimed! We watched as he bucked and then ran down a hillside to an area no longer visible. I knew I had hit him and we needed to give him some time so we waited for about 20 minutes before we headed further up the hill to the next ridge line to try and find him. Unfortunately, I didn’t put the quality fatal shot needed on this Deer and we discovered much later he remained wounded for several hours until I could find him again. I would like to think every hunter wants to make an ethical and very clean kill, and for me to see even the tiniest of creatures suffer, hurts my heart. Even as a Fly fisherman I have always believed and practiced catch and release, being somewhat always turned off to ending the life of even a small fish.
We had found a very good blood trail and expected to find him at every turn, but got to a point where we could not locate anymore blood or sign. We scoured the area for a least 6 hours thinking he was lying dead within the immediate area and we just couldn’t find him! We carefully glassed the area and adjacent canyons and hillsides. I had to find him, I just had too, I couldn’t bare the thought of leaving a dead or mortally wounded animal on the side of a mountain, it literally made me sick. We later located another large group of Deer several miles away and I watched as another large buck tore up a bush on the hillside in a display of power as another Deer slowly approached and worked his way through the same coolie. “I think that Deer moving through that coolie is limping”, I said to Mike, so we worked our way over to the next ridge to get closer and get a better look. As we moved into a better position, I could see this was my Deer from this morning, I had hit him forward of the vitals in the left leg on my initial shot and he had managed to make it several miles from the last blood trail we had found. He was trying to join another large group of Deer, but was now an outcast being seen by the large buck as weak and also as a threat, so he was being kept outside the group. I could somehow relate to a feeling of being outside of my normal groups because I am no longer physically like them, I ran the best I could down a hillside trying to keep my balance and head him off before he got into the next canyon. Totally exhausted upon getting into position to take another shot from about 190 yards my barrel swayed with my heavy breathing. Boom, WHACK! Down he went into high mountain sage, I could see he thrashed for a second and then moved no more.
Mike came over the hillside and I shouted, “he’s down right over there.” I have really always been a bird hunter more for the enjoyment of my dogs and have hunted a lot in similar terrain and knew I could walk right up to him as I marked my spot. Cautiously, l approached the area where I had seen him fall but he was no longer there, again my bullet missed the vitals! Unable to walk or run, and now fatally wounded he managed to crawl and creep through the heavy sage at least another 50 yards from where I knew him to be. We looked for about 20 minutes until we finally located him, camouflaged and bundled up under a large bush trying to remain stealthily hidden. He now lie unable to move as Mike unsheathed his knife and plunged it into his heart instead of firing another round at him point blank range and destroying valuable meat. I watched with tears in my eyes as the final breathe left this beautiful creature’s body, all the while Mike lay on top of him whispering softly, “Just go to sleep buddy.”
I pay homage to his struggle to survive, limping through Idaho mountains along with me trying to keep up with the healthy. This is more than likely my final Deer and I’m glad it was extremely hard and I didn’t quit. I thank God and this animal for making this a life lesson. I am blessed to have the financial ability to have him immortalized and enjoy his beauty for years to come as he hangs as more than just a trophy upon my wall. I’m truly both very grateful and upset he suffered at the end of his life, his spirit will always live within me, thank you.