DEER UPHILL

[hunterman7956]

https://www.facebook.com/100001939098647/posts/2216813108393304/

[rob-c]

Amazing what a deer can do , no doubt.. 

[wolc123]

That looks a lot like the ridge that ran along-side of the dirt lane to the old off-the-grid cabin that my in-laws use to rent for a long-weekend every October, near the NW edge of Adirondack park.  The incline angle and height looks nearly identical.   Usually, the weekend they rented fell on opening weekend of ML season, although a few years it was a week later, on opening week of rifle.  About 6 years ago (a ML year),  I hiked into the woods parallel with the lake, to an oak ridge where I had heard deer snorting while I was out fishing the year before.   Shortly after sun-up, a big doe led a group of 5 or 6 other antlerless deer up onto that ridge.  She stood broadside, about 25 yards away, and I shot her behind the shoulder.  She walked a few steps closer, standing right at the edge of the cliff.   The other deer just stood and watched.  It almost seemed like none of them had any clue what was happening.  Her knees started to wobble and she fell over and down the cliff.  

I reloaded, except for the cap, an butt-slid down the cliff after her.  I had not known at the time that the lane to the cabin was right at the bottom.  The doe was laying right in the middle of it, and starting to lift her head.  I put a second shot into it to finish her, and gutted her right where she laid.  My sister in law still gives me a little crap about that (she jogged past the pile a little later that morning).  She was a little turned off when I carried the warm heart and liver into the cabin, as they were all sitting around the table eating breakfast.   My father in law was also a little concerned, fearing the the owners of the place would not want to rent it to him again if they saw the mess.  No worries for me, by the following morning there was not a trace of that gut-pile left.  The vermin and birds cleaned up every last scrap.   I did make sure that I placed a bucket under the carcass, out in the boathouse, and cleaned up every last drop of blood.