GT Hawk- Deer hunter.

[rockinhawk]

Did you ever see a Hawk catch a deer? Well I almost did! Twice with the same car.

Yesterday while on the way to the So.Ga. Chapter meeting in Savannah, we were traveling up Hwy 301
A large buck, looked to be about a 10 point,came from the left side of the 4 lane straight across the road toward us. This is not uncommon around these parts so we are always on the look out for them. Luckily I saw him coming and the old GT disc brake system did it's thing. My wife said she looked up when I hit the brakes and saw nothing but Deer fur. We missed him by an inch or so.

Once before we were coming home from a meet just before dark. I had already turned the lights on but it was still light enough to see a deer coming across an open field at full gallop. Again from the left but this time on a 2 lane road. I got down hard on the brakes that time also but didn't have room for him to pass in front of us. The deer leaped over the hood of the Hawk! Miss Edie,(my wife) said she saw the light from the fender light reflecting off his hoof as he went over.

Be careful when riding the back roads, those agravating things are everywhere. NT

[starliner62]

I hit one a couple of weeks ago with my Mark VIII. Lucky for me, he just grazed the left front fender and hood. This was near the intersection of I-95 and I-40 near Raleigh, NC. The powers that be in Raleigh are considering allowing hunters to use bows within the city limits to try and reduce the deer population that is almost out of control.

[rockinhawk]

I have hit 3 with my old Dodge truck, Miss Edie hit one with her Chrysler, Daughter got one with a Sunbird. One ran into the side of my Sons Jeep, grandson took one out with a 58 Commander, and the list goes on and on....

[53k]

I hit one some years ago in our '83 Avanti (coming home from an Avanti club Christmas party). Was about a half mile from home. Wiped out the deer, but only put a little crack in the right front fender right at the parking light. My wife hit (and killed one) five or six years ago 1/2 mile from home in the other direction driving our '01 Bravada- cracked the parking light lens.
My son has hit several. The worst was when he was test driving a customer's car after working on it. The customer was waiting for him to come back, but the car didn't make it. His wife has hit three- minor damage in all cases.

[Scotty Bob]

I'm in the auto insurance claims business here in south central PA. The body shops have been filling up with deer hits over the past several weeks...the PA Turnpike, I-81, and I-83 run through my area...

I have been seeing where they hit the front of the vehicle and their body swings and runs down the side, wiping out everything from the center front back the the quarter panel. I am talking $12,000.00 on one already!

[rockinhawk]

Let's all join PETA and the anti-gun movement and help protect these cute little critters!!!

OR...


Let's all load up the shotguns with buck shot, and the 30.06's turn them into venison, and protect our cars.


Guess which route I choose. NT

[JeffDeWitt]

Yep, it's far better for a deer to be taken out by a hunter than some innocent driver.

[starliner62]

a little deer jerky sounds good to me!!!

[PlainBrownR2]

I should also issue this message as well. Having lived in a somewhat rural area out here, it's not uncommon to see deer every so often. Deer on normal days are not the brightest bulbs in the set, especially when it comes to crossing roads. Having run into one and losing a headlight pod on a '95 Crown Vic, I can also attest that at this time of year means it's also rutting season. That means that deer are ready to mate, and they will do anything, include forgoing any kind of what little judgment they had, to crossing a road to get to the deer on the opposite side. I hit one that wasn't crossing the road, but trotting down my side of the lane with his backside to the traffic coming at him. It was also a nice healthy 200 lb 12 point buck. After seeing his face and that look of "WTF!!" plastered to the windshield in my driver's side windshield when he made a mad dash into the passing lane, I let the police handle it putting him down, and called them to send out a hunter to finish the job.

Reminds me of a joke I heard:
A deer is in the middle of a road and sees a pair of lights coming. The lights are set wide so the deer assumes it's a pair of motorcycles and they will leisurely pass on either side of the deer.

Turns out it was a Pierce Arrow.....

[fastfritz]

Let's all join PETA

I belong to PETA................People Eating Tasty Animals

[jclary]

A lot of the so-called intellectuals, (pencil necked NPR types), will tell you that the reason for all the deer is a result of our "conservation" efforts. However, I think it is a results of a cultural change over the last twenty or so years.

I recall a time when every male, from about age twelve, couldn't wait for hunting season to open. Back then, the conversation was football, guns, and hunting. Deer and turkey got so scarce around here that if you saw one, it was an event worthy of being reported on the six o'clock news.

Now, the hunting laws have become so complex, it is difficult to know if you are in compliance from the time you leave your home with a weapon to getting to and finding an area where it is legal to hunt. Kids are glued to video games, and often older guys are too stressed with meeting their monthly bills to be trusted with a loaded gun.

Rather than being a product of our conservation efforts, I think the resurgence of our wildlife is a result of a cultural shift and change in our behavior. No longer is every male from the age of twelve to eighty stalking in the woods armed to the teeth blasting away at anything that moves!

[Michidan]

Plenty of Michiganders hit the woods this morning. Opening day for gun, Nov. 15th.
Been too busy to get excited about it this year. But hopefully the driving will be a little safer around here after today.
I've hit three, but I've managed to miss a whole bunch more of them.

[JBOYLE]

I live in the country, my 75 year-old next door neighbor has lived in his house house his entire life.
He says there has never been more animal around here.
I drive down the road and in the hall you see herds of deer, some nights you'll see three herds with upwards of 100 animals.
We see the occasional Moose too. They're seen in town too, and my mom's heavily-wooded neighborhood, there was one too, growing up there in the 70s you rarely saw a deer, let alone a moose.
The mountains to the north are home to an incresing number of Grizzlies and wolves....


I don't think the PETA croud has anything to worry about.

I've only had one really close call, let's hear it for good steering and 4-wheels disks.

[Jim B PEI]

Although I was in Army Cadets and could strip, clean and reassemble a rifle blindfolded, and my dad was a Canadian medalist at rifle shooting, I have never hunted myself because I'm a simply terrible shot, and its got worse with the need for glasses. Barn door etc. Depended on the kindness of strangers and the more talented for any venison etc for the grill or stewpot. Grew up canoeing with my dad and others up the the hunt camps, so no stranger to all that, but some things are just not genetic. While I know quite a few traditional vegetarians and count some as friends, I don't "understand" those PETA people in the least.

Getting back on topic, living on Prince Edward Island, there is nothing much to hit. We have no bears, lynx, cougars, groundhogs, porcupines, deer*, moose, elk*, buffalo*, wolves or possums. We have raccoons, skunks, foxes and coyotes, rabbits and squirrels, beavers and muskrats, and thats about it. The only time I've had close or way too close encounters with wildlife have been off Island, like the black bear that hugged my car in Alberta, the deer that fell off a small cliff onto my car in Nova Scotia, the handbrake skid with loud prayers around a lumbering moose in Ontario, and the coyote that committed suicide by running into my Jetta recently (Germans 0.9, Wildlife less than zero)

*farm raised here behind fences. Deer have been introduced here many times but always die off for some reason.

[barnlark]

Plenty of Michiganders hit the woods this morning. Opening day for gun, Nov. 15th.
Been too busy to get excited about it this year. But hopefully the driving will be a little safer around here after today.
I've hit three, but I've managed to miss a whole bunch more of them.

Not sure about where you are Dan, but around here that's when it's really dangerous, when they are running for their lives out of the woods. Not enough going down to make it safe, that's for sure. Glad the Stude is tucked away. Then again... I've seen videos of them somehow making into department stores, so who knows?!