Crazy deer stories part of hunting lore
by Peter Jakey, PIN Managing Editor
Did you ever hear the one about the deer… Deer have been known to do some really strange things. Have you ever heard of the deer that got stuck on an ice floe on Lake Huron, or ran into the side of a vehicle, or the one that got its head stuck under a stump, never to get it out? A story in Rogers City which has reached legendary status is the one of a six-point buck that crashed through a window and ran rampant through the halls of St. Ignatius Catholic School. It happened 15 years ago.
IT WAS about 3:20 p.m. when school staff member Christy Kelly heard the breaking of glass and a loud commotion at the Third Street entrance to the school. Looking up, she saw the buck clamoring along the hallway. It turned left toward the classrooms, and then right, down a longer corridor.
In a panicky state, the deer broke through a narrow window next to the doors at the back entrance. ?In his trail, he left shattered glass from the two front doors, a lot of hair, a broken window, imprints from his hooves in the hallway and gouges from his rack in the wooden molding at the top of the seven-foot window,? states an article from the November 26, 1987 Advance.
All the students had been dismissed for the day, but there most certainly would have been injuries by the frightened animal if the students were still lingering in the hall. ?There are times when deer are not too intelligent, they?re a creature of habit,? said Dick Shoquist, retired conservation officer, who makes his home in Onaway.
?A lot of times they will see their reflections. The bucks have a tendency to charge other bucks if they?re coming into their territory,? Shoquist said. ?That can explain part of it, but then again stupidity is part of it too.?
What direction the deer came from and where it went are still unknown. THE BEHAVIOR of deer and what makes them tick could be classified as ?unknown.?
A lot of strange stories come from deer that pull a Lazarus on hunters. There were a couple over the years involving hunters who lost valuable items to deer they thought were dead. One hunter had bagged a deer deep in the swamp and wanted to drag it out before the sun went down. It wasn?t a big deer so the hunter attempted to carry the deer on his shoulders, but quickly realized that another hunter might mistake him for a deer and shoot him. So the hunter took his hunter vest off and put it on the deer.
It must have been the chance the deer was looking for, because he came to life and ran off, vest and all, never to be seen again. With that hunter vest on, it probably died of old age because nobody shot it. There?s also the story of a hunter who lost his brand new knife. He had dropped the deer and was preparing to clean it. He stuck the knife into the deer, only to have it run away, with the knife still stuck in it. Just like the vest, the prized new hunting knife, was never to be seen again.
WHEN HE lived in Clinton County, Shoquist encountered a deer that was acting in a very peculiar manner. It had been ramming a farmer?s combine. ?He would fall down, get back up and charge at the combine again,? said Shoquist, who was the farmer?s neighbor. Shoquist came over and dispatched the deer because the
?They said they watched her for 10 minutes and she just laid in the field, about 75 feet off the road. She didn?t move at all,? said Shoquist. He went out to the location, turned on the flashers on his vehicle, and walked out to the deer, but she got up and ran further into the field. ?There was a young fawn that obviously had just been born,? he said. He left the deer to take care of the young animal. It was a heart-warming tale from conservation officer who didn?t always enjoy putting the animals down. But for every story involving a deer that tugs at your heartstrings, there are 10 about deer jumping through living room windows, falling into quarries, or getting their heads stuck in tree branches.
