Strange things found in the forest

dmccarty · Jan 5, 2016

stuckmotor said:
Did you see wounds or evidence of a lightning strike?

Lightning strike is a good idea :thumbsup: but I saw the bullet wounds in the deer.

Later,
Dan

farmer2009 · Jan 5, 2016

dmccarty said:
Lightning strike is a good idea :thumbsup: but I saw the bullet wounds in the deer. Later, Dan

Maybe that's where the park rangers dumped the poached deer they found. Just an idea and maybe why they didn't seem very interested in the find.

DFB · Jan 5, 2016

Oh man a local farmer here several years ago had lightning strike and kill 10 of his beef cattle. They were all herded up together by one tree during the storm.

Had to hire a local excavator/operator to help take care of things afterwards.

Luke'sScreenName · Jan 5, 2016

farmer2009 said:
Maybe that's where the park rangers dumped the poached deer they found. Just an idea and maybe why they didn't seem very interested in the find.

Oooh! I like this idea!

orangeandgreen · Jan 5, 2016

Was squirrel hunting as a teenager and came out in a neighbor's corn field. There was a group of funny looking weeds along the edge of the field with a path going back toward the neighbor's house. Not knowing what kind of weeds they were, I plucked a leaf and took it to school to ask my ag teacher about it.
He confirmed that it was whacky weed and said I really needed to get rid of it, but not in his trash can, and I needed to find a new place to squirrel hunt.

WoodChuckDad · Jan 5, 2016

DrRod said:
That is a strange find. I thought Hamms was only found in Chicago and Wisconsin.

I have a Hamms Churchkey that I found in a junk shop in Outer Banks NC about 5 years ago.

/pine · Jan 5, 2016

orangeandgreen said:
Was squirrel hunting as a teenager and came out in a neighbor's corn field. There was a group of funny looking weeds along the edge of the field with a path going back toward the neighbor's house. Not knowing what kind of weeds they were, I plucked a leaf and took it to school to ask my ag teacher about it.
He confirmed that it was whacky weed and said I really needed to get rid of it, but not in his trash can, and I needed to find a new place to squirrel hunt.

About half the teachers I had in Jr. high (including AG instructors)...would have asked..."are there quantities of this available"...!!

WoodChuckDad · Jan 5, 2016

dmccarty said:
I don't think the deer were dumped but it is possible of course. The bodies were well off the road, way to far to carry by hand, and I did not see tire tracks. Most poachers, calling who ever did this a poacher is too kind, would not seem to be the type of person to shoot and then carry off the deer to dump them else where. No meat was taken from the deer. They were just killed.

Having multiple shooters is the only explanation that ever made any sense but then you have to have two or more really good shooters, and I suspect some luck, to get that many deer in one spot. I think the deer had to have been eating when shot. I just don't see how they could have been hit when moving...

Later,
Dan

Well I don't kill just for the kill....although I do enjoy the kill,...I have shot deer in the same spot before. I have killed a deer with muzzle loader, and just as fast as I could reload, killed another that stood there trying to figure out what had happened. I have also sat in a blind and killed one, then an hour later killed another, just 20 feet from it...gutted them both on the spot that they dropped, and the next day killed another one that was sniffing one of the gut piles. Sometimes deer are the ghosts of the forest. Stealthy and crafty and almost magical. Sometimes they are just about the dumbest things you can imagine.

dmccarty · Jan 6, 2016

farmer2009 said:
Maybe that's where the park rangers dumped the poached deer they found. Just an idea and maybe why they didn't seem very interested in the find.

I contacted the state wildlife agency not the park rangers. In hindsight, I should have contacted both.

I don't think the park rangers would have dump dead deer at that spot. While the spot was not visible from the road, the deer were sorta near some houses and the deer were not in the woods. The deer were also spread out a bit. If someone was going to dump the deer out of the back of a pick up, I think the deer would have been in a pile. Thinking about it some more, I don't think the deer could have been dumped at the same time from a UTV since there were too many of them to be carried at one time and multiple trips would have been more likely to leave tracks. A truck could have gone in with one load, and maybe not have left tracks but then I would expect the deer to be piled more closely together....

This was also on the edge of the park and I don't think the rangers went out there that often. The problems they had deal with were on the interior of the park. The only access the rangers would have had to that spot was via the power line. They would have had to driven up the power line from the park interior or gone out on public roads with a load of a dead deer. There were better spots to dump deer...

I really am starting to wonder if lightning did the deed. The deer were under a power line. A lightning strike would explain how there were that many dead deer in one spot, close together but not too close, and all at the same stage of decomposition. The only fly in that ointment is what I thought were bullet holes. Maybe the deer were at a certain stage of decomposition that created a small bullet sized hole or bug had created the hole. :confused3:

Later,
Dan