Don't read National Geographic!

[MossRoad]

I hit a nice doe two weeks ago about 1/2 mile from the house. It was 5:30 in the AM and I was going about 50 mph. It was like she dropped out of the sky! I didn't even have time to say "Aw sh..!" ...

On a rainy Friday night my wife and I dropped off the kid at the in-laws and went our for a nice dinner. Immediately after dinner, I got sick to my stomach. Bad food. She drove us back to the in-laws and about a block from them, it was as you said, "It was like she dropped out of the sky!" I had time to yell "DEE" BAM! Deer died instantly. Car had around $2000 damage. Took care of the car, picked up the kid, went home to go to bed, stepped in wet carpet... the water bed sprang a leak and the safety liner failed. Good grief.... Oh yeah, it was Friday the 13th!!!

 

[Chuck52]

Well, I can't match Mossroad's tale of woe, but it does seem as if the deer are after me. I just today took the car in for repair, $3900 plus change. Saturday was the first time in a while I had been able to cruise my place and check my trees. Sure enough, one of my Carpathian walnuts had been visited by a buck. I hope it still has enough bark to survive. One of my pecans had also been rubbed, but it didn't go through the outer bark. So I spent a while putting some welded wire fencing around each trunk....just a little 8" circle up to the lowest branches. That should discourage rubbing, and if a buck still goes after the lowest branches, well they will be getting trimmed off anyway down the road.

Chuck

 

[MossRoad]

I drove down to Cincinnati and back yesterday. I've never seen so many dead deer along one stretch of road in my life. 74 form Indy to Cinci must have had 10-15 dead in each direction. Plus, they were standing in the fields watching the farmers harvest. Saw a few really nice bucks standing and a couple smaller bucks dead. All in all I probably saw well over a hundred deer last night eating grass by the sides of the highways. Pretty scary, when you think about it.

 

[Chuck52]

Scary for sure now with the time change. Lots of folks will be driving home at just the right twilight time for the deer to be roaming around. Before hitting that deer, last accident I had was in 2003, when a sweet young thing decided the stop sign didn't apply to her. It took me a good while to get over that one, not that there were any injuries or anything. I was just gun shy about going through intersections. Now I find I drive too slow after dark and have folks on my bumper. Maybe I ought to just drive my old pickup. After installing Roo Bars or something.

Chuck

 

[JESSE1]

I was traveling home from work one morning in the fall of '97 when a deer ran in front of me. No way to avoid it when you're traveling 70 mph on the interstate. I was driving a new Ford Expedition and really didn't feel any impact. I saw the deer thrown to the side of the road. The Expedition was a 4x4 and the only damage was to the right side bumper bracket where the bumper had been pushed back a few inches. The body shop estimater told me that they had several people come in with wrecked cars from hitting deer. A small car doesn't have a chance against a deer. We are having a real problem now with feral pigs being hit. That's about like hitting a full 55 gallon drum. Pigs really do damage and a lot of times several are hit at one time. Makes a real mess on the interstate when several are hit by an 18 wheeler.

 

[MossRoad]

We went out west to Montana and back a few years ago. We noticed dead deer all over the place in every western state. But the pronghorns were standing on the other side of the fences just watching. Are deer just stupid like raccoons when it comes to crossing roads?