I went hunting on opening day of the NY 2018-19 regular deer hunting season & am ashamed of myself. It's not
because I went hunting mind or that I got a deer but because of a mistake I made.
Opening day this year turned out to the most depressing
hunting day / hunting season of my life for me. It started off okay because I
remembered to bring everything I'd need. I even drove passed the state forest
the day before to check on parking conditions. Zero places to park and the snow
was piled higher than anywhere else in front of the entrance to the state land
parking area; why I have no clue. I went into town, checked into my motel and
then went to Homer's Depot to pick up a snow shovel. Opening morning I dug out
a nice parking spot on the side of the road over a culvert where the shoulder
was known to me to be asphalt.
I only got out in the woods late because of the shoveling of
the parking spot, it took me at least a half an hour to do it but I took my
time did not want a coronary and that snow was heavy. It was pretty light,
maybe 10 minutes before sunrise when I did go into the woods. I saw 4 nice does
within 10-15 minutes after sunrise. They were about 75-85 yards off and moving
behind and through a brushy area. Took a shot at one and missed. Even though I
figured I had missed, I looked for blood for about 30 minutes, no red at all
anywhere on the very white background of the newly fallen snow and I looked
quite the distance from where it was standing when I fired. Sometimes I miss,
too bad it was today.
While looking for blood, I ran across a set of fresh bear
tracks. Kind of small, I thought but I am no bear track expert. A short time
after that, I found a second bigger set of bear tracks, I am guessing mama bear
and baby bear were walking parallel to one another about 20 to 25 yards apart;
otherwise two adult bears took basically the same route since it snowed. There
were some deer tracks in the bear tracks, gotta love it. While looking at the
second set of tracks, I caught movement off to my left, figured the does had
swung around and doubled back and saw a dark shape go by between the brush.
Then another and another and 7 or 8 in all - turkeys. They were about 40-50
yards off and not at all spooked by me. Too bad it was not Turkey season.
Waited around a bit longer hoping the does would double
back. Got to thinking about all the deer tracks in the area, there were really
a lot and since the snow fell yesterday, they were fairly fresh. I figured it
was either a popular crossroads for them or there was a bedding area nearby.
Kept thinking those does might come back, walked around a little and was about
to take a seat when I saw a doe coming right at me through thick undergrowth maybe
50 or 60 yards off. I stopped, and waited. It would stop and then continue
every few to several steps it took but kept coming my way. I looked around to
see if a buck was following it and did not see one but saw some other does off
behind it. I am guessing a minute or two at most went by and the doe turned
completely broadside to me. I brought the scope on my Marlin 336 up on target, cross-hairs on the spot at which I would fire and followed it a couple or few
seconds anticipating it walking by an opening in the brush and trees where I
could get a shot. I was zeroed in on the kill zone right then and once it was
in the clear I fired. It spun around once and fell almost immediately. She
convulsed once or twice and I had gotten my doe. As I was walking over to it, I
took a pic of it where it was through the brush to show to my son as a sort of
this is what it looked like when I shot it. It looks as if it is right in
amongst a tangle of brush and small trees that were between us but was actually
behind them in a small but pretty clear area.
As I got closer to it and on the other side of the brush
that had been between us, I stopped dead in my tracks, my jaw literally dropped
and my heart sank. My doe was not a doe. It was a spike buck with about a
5-6" tine on each side. What I did next is what I thought was right but
maybe I should have done what a friend had told me years ago – left it to rot -
if something like that should ever happen to me when hunting. I gutted it,
tagged it, dragged it, got it into my car (on a plastic tarp), tried making a
call but got no signal, drove to where I could get a cell phone signal and
pulled over to make a call at a rest stop about 2 miles off. Then I did one
more thing that I had thought was the right thing - I reported myself to NY State
DEC.
I called DEC and got a central dispatcher. He gave me the
number for a local DEC officer. I called the officer and explained I had
mistakenly shot a spike buck I had thought was a doe. I also explained put a
doe tag on it, not because of my mistake but because spike bucks with antlers
to a certain size are considered anterless deer but I was uncertain if this one
was within that size range. I also explained I had thought it had been a doe
because I never saw the spikes until after I shot it. He asked me to wait where
I was and he would come along to check it out. I waited.
Two DEC law enforcement officers showed up in separate
vehicles maybe 20 minutes after my call. They were pretty nice. One officer,
the one I had spoken to on the phone, at first asked my way I went to the rest
area I was in to report myself. He asked me if I had been on my way home and
then decided to make the call implying I had been trying to flee. I explained I
went there because the heavy snow piled on the side of the roads from the plow
made it difficult to park and I knew of the rest area and went there. I also
knew I would get phone reception there which I had not been getting at the
state forest where I shot the deer. He then eased up and kept telling me he
would do what he could for me since I had self-reported and the other officer
sort of concurred but played bad cop all the same. The other repeatedly
insisted there was no way anyone could miss those antlers. No disrespect meant
toward the officer but I have to wonder why he thought I shot the deer if I had
seen the antlers - did he think just so I could report myself for a violation
of the game laws? He also told me I should have used y rifle scope to assure it
was not an antlered deer. As I recall though, my scope was on my rifle and one
should not point a rifle at anything one is not ready to shoot. Besides that,
having been a firearms instructor since 1987, I can say without a doubt that we
never in all of our LE Firearms training ever told a shooter to use his scope
to ID a target but we did tell our agents to never use a light or optics on a
firearm as an optical aid other than when about to shoot and thus to use it only
to acquire the target. Regardless, I honestly thought I had sufficiently
identified it as a doe.
As to the antlers, I did not see them! I missed them and if
you look at the photos you may see why. The bucks ears were as big or almost as
big as its tines. In addition, there was heavy brush between us the whole time
I saw it. Coincidentally, the photos I snapped of it while walking over to it
(the ones to show my son kind of what my view before the shot had looked like
more or less) shows how the brush and the ears can block your sight so as to
cover the antlers. Sometimes I could barely see the deer at all as it advanced
and had to wait for an opening to take a shot.
Sadly, I had not thought of the photos when talking to the
officers, had not even realized then that you could not see the antlers in the
two pics, or I would have showed them. Had I thought of the pics and showed
them to the officers I might have gotten to keep the deer and not get a ticket
because they told me had the antlers been a couple of inches shorter and harder
to see they would have let me off and let me keep it (as it turns out if three
inches or less it would be considered antlerless under the law and my doe
permit would allowed me to take it legally). As it was, the one guy kept
stressing how obvious they were but he was looking at it while in the rest area
as it was laying on a shelf on the back of the other officers truck. Even then,
if you look, you can see how much the ear can obscure those antlers. Yes you
can plainly see one in that pic but again it is right there in front of you not
in the brushy area with all the tress bushes twigs and whatnot.
Anyway, they seized the deer, my deer tag and gave me a
summons. They were nice enough but nice or not I am going to have to pay the
consequences even though the main responding officer said he wrote it up only
as a violation (instead of an misdemeanor) and believe me that was a relief.
Regardless, I later had to report this to my county PD's pistol license section
and this could potentially put me in jeopardy of losing my pistol license. When
I told the DEC officers this, they scoffed thinking no pistol licensing
authority would make you report what they considered a minor violation but I am
fairly certain I am required to do so. As for the ticket, I tried handle it in
court on Monday after that weekend but to no avail. As per the officer, the
fine goes from $0 to $250 plus a $75 administrative fee and let me just say
that would be coming at a bad time.
Once done with that mess, I went back to town and picked up
a couple of pairs of gutting gloves and got some lunch. Even though it was only
around noon (I shot the deer sometime between 0800 & 0800 as best I
could guess) I was debating going back hunting or to the motel. I decided to
man up and went back to hunt some more. When I got there, the parking spot I
had dug out of the snow was taken by some other hunter's pickup truck with 4WD.
That person could have parked anywhere but took that spot. I suppose I should
look at it this way: who can blame him. Oh well, called it quits for the day
and went back to the motel in a really depressed state of mind. It got to me,
still does, that I had watched that deer until it was almost on top of me and I
shot it between 30-40 yards away and never saw those damned antlers. That is, I
never saw them until after I shot it and was right on top of it. I don't know
if you ever had anything like this happen to you, it is the first time for me
that I have ever gotten into trouble like this and all for a mistake.
It troubles me deeply that I while was sure of my target, I
obviously was mistaken regardless of how sure I believed myself as to its sex.
It also bothers me that I did what I thought was the right thing by reporting
myself instead of following my pal's advice from years ago and now I will have
to pay the consequences. Of course, it probably would bother me much more had I
taken that advice and left the deer there to rot and not reported myself. It
concerns and disturbs me very much that I will now have a record even if only a
violation. It is upsetting, and going to be hard on the pocket book, that I may
have a pay a fine. It is giving me quite the bit of anxiety in as much as I
believe have to report this to NCPD pistol license section and they may decide
to seize all of my firearms. I have
hunted for over 45 years and never did anything like this before and had no
reason to do it now except that I simply did not see those antlers and honestly
thought the deer to be a doe and it makes me feel ashamed of myself that I made
such a mistake. Mostly though, I was ashamed, very much so, to tell my son what
I did. It was especially bad telling my son after having taught him firearms
safety, how to shoot, about conservation & hunting, hunting etiquette and
hunting safety. I attended hunter decades ago, then again with my daughter and
again with my son a few years after my doing it with my daughter.
After I returned home, I went to my eye doctor for an
examination. I was pretty surprised to find out that my eyesight had
deteriorated since my last eye exam either one or two years before that most
recent one. In fact he prescribed me lenses for both distance vision and
close-up vision. Before that I had worn 1.25 over the counter readers for my
distance vision. About 8 to 10 years earlier, I had seen the same doctor who
examined me after my hunting blunder. Back then I had, through something a
co-worker had seen while on a surveillance (I was a federal agent at the time),
I discovered that my distance vision was failing a bit; I had not even realized
it until the other agent pointed out the thing I had not seen. At the time I
had been wearing reading glasses, the weakest over the counter ones for
close-up vision and they helped me see in the distance as well. The same doctor
(I have been seeing him for a long time and saw his father before him) told me
that I needed stronger close-up glasses but that if they did not tire my eyes I
could use the weakest over the counter readers for distance, he said it was
virtually the same as prescription distance glasses would have been for me at
the time. As for close-up glasses I had to keep using stronger and stronger
ones over the years, all of a sudden I would realize I can no longer see
clearly with them. The weakest ones I used for distance were another story; I
used them for at least 8 to 10 years with no evident problems and to me I
thought my distance vision was fine. It seems through that my distance vision
had changed markedly and once again I had not realized it, at least not until
my latest eye exam after the hunting mishap. I am guessing that is because it
probably changed much more slowly than my close-up vision and I just got
accustomed to it and thought it was normal. It was not and the strength of the
glasses went from 1.25 to 2.0 for distance. I was amazed at how much more
clearly I could see when I got the prescription glasses.
There may have been another thing going on with my vision
that day. I used to wear one pair of glasses for reading and another pair
(different strengths) for distance. The readers at the time I was hunting were
3.25, the strongest I could find over the counter. Just before I shot the deer
in question, I had taken off my distance glasses and put on the strong readers.
I did so to be able to see the distance adjustments on my rifle scope. The wood
I were in had changed drastically as I walked along and went from fairly open
to very thick and full of undergrowth and downfalls. So, where I had the
distance set at 100 yards, I decided to change it to 50 yards knowing there is
no way I would get a shot at 100 yards in woods as thick as those. I had just
set the distance when I spotted three deer and saw the ‘doe’ I would shoot. I
do not remember if I put back on the distance glasses, my guess is I did not. I
wish I had also thought of this when talking to the DEC officers but I was
pretty shaken up by them telling me I could be arrested. As I later thought
back on that day, I am pretty sure I never took off the stronger glasses, I
have a distinct memory of having to take them off when I later got back in my
car and started to drive. While I could see at a distance with them across a
room pretty – even across the street, the clarity does not last more than a few
to several seconds and things blur somewhat especially at further distances. I
cannot swear that also was part of it, just saying maybe. Anyway, I hopefully
have solved that issue from ever happening again as my prescription lenses are
bifocals – no more needing to change from readers to distance and back to
readers depending on what I am looking at. Now I can use the single pair for
both close-up and distance. Still though, I am ashamed of myself for shooting
that deer and am not excusing myself just explaining what may have led me to
shoot it and it not being a legal deer.
I have been to court two times already to see if I could get
some info from the judge as how this proceeds the first time and to plead not
guilty the second time. I tried going to the DA’s office as per the judge’s
instructions but the guards would not allow me entry without an appointment. I
called the DA’s office twice, the first time the phone rang and rang and rang
and no one picked up during normal business hours. I called sometime later and
got through that second time and asked to speak to an Assistant DA who handles
cases in Windsor and was told I could not speak to anyone and had to wait for
my court date. When I explained that the judge had told me to call, I was put
through to someone I was told was the receptionist for those cases. I was again
told, I could not speak to an Assistant DA and that is what the pre-trial
meeting would accomplish. Some months later I received a notice for my court
date – March 11th. So, I will be off to the courthouse in Windsor
for my pretrial hearing or conference with the DA that day. I have all of my
evidence lined up: and I am hoping for a dismissal.
Well, I went to court this passed Monday. I got there about
45 mnutes to an hour early. The Assistant DA walked over and introduced himself
and asked why I was there. I explained it and he said a judge other than the
one on the bench at that moment would take my case at 1PM. A little while
before 1PM the ADA walked over to me again and told me he was going to make a
motion to dismiss the case. He said that the DEC Officer had not submitted his
deposition on my case. A little while after 1PM, the judge called me up to the
bench, same judge I had seen a couple of time already, and he told me he was
dismissing the case for the same reason. Now I had to wonder, why did the DEC
Officer not submit the deposition! My guess, and this is just a guess, is that
he figured I had been truthful and had never seen the antlers and that I
probably had suffered enough grief over this not to have to pay or suffer more.
If that is the case then I owe him my thans for that. Even if that was not the
case and maybe it got lost in the shuffle or he was too busy to handle it or
the DEC decided it was not worth pursuing at trial – I called him tot thank him
for being a gentleman and for being respectful on the day he gave me the
ticket. I am thinking he would not have issued a ticket had his boss not told
him to do so. This I can say for sure – when the ADA told me he was asking for
a dismissal and when the judge told me it was dismissed I was a happy hunter. Again though, let me
say it did not lessen my shame for shooting that deer because I had
misidentified it.
This all is quite the embarrassment and I truly am ashamed
of myself. This post was not easy to write up and place here for the eyes
of the public; yet, I figured I should share
the experience so maybe others can avoid it. Because of my mistake you may
learn something. Maybe it will make you look harder at the next deer you see
when hunting or it might make you consider the advice my friend gave me way
back when and maybe you will take it. Then again, maybe you will do what I did,
what you I thought was and you think is right but at least you will have an
idea of what may befall you if you do that.
Stay safe if out there and hunting to. I hope your hunts are
happy ones. As for me, next season can only be better or so I hope because if
it is not, then it may be my last hunting season. I may not bother ever going
hunting again if it is worse than this year’s hunt because this last one has
been one heck of a gloomy season for me. Definitely my worst hunting day /
hunting season ever.
All the best,
Glenn B
