Two Cases of Buck Fever.
I have heard many hunters say that they had never had a case of buck
fever, and that they could shoot at a deer with as little emotion
under all circumstances as they could at a target. Now this is not
the case with me, for the conditions under which I am working makes
all the difference imaginable with my nervous system. I never saw but
one place that I did not get the buck fever when deer hunting and
that was in Trinity and Humboldt counties, California. There I saw
deer so thick and tame that it was no more exciting than it would be
to go into a drove of sheep in a pasture and shoot sheep. If by
chance you failed to hit the deer the first shot it was only a matter
of a few minutes when you would have another opportunity to kill your
deer. So there was no cause to get the fever, but such has not been
the case in Eastern States, for many years at least.
About 1880, a man by the name of Corwin and I were camping on the
Jersey Shore turnpike in Pennsylvania. We had just gone into camp and
as I usually make it a point to first get plenty of wood cut for the
camp at night, so that when I come home in the evening I will not
have to go out and cut wood, I had been cutting wood and fixing up
all day until four o'clock in the afternoon, when I suggested to Mr.
Corwin that we go out and see if we could find some signs and locate
the deer so that we would know where to look for them early the next
morning. We followed down a ridge for some distance without seeing
any signs of deer but about the time that it was getting dark so that
we could not see very good and we were about to go to camp, we came
onto a trail of a number of deer. As it was so dark we left the trail
and went to camp being careful not to start or alarm the deer. The
next morning when we got up we found that a snow had fallen of some 8
or 10 inches and knowing that this snow would cover the trail of the
deer so deep that there would be no following it until we could start
them out of their beds, we concluded that one of us should go down
the ridge opposite or west of the ridge where we had found the trail
of the deer. It was decided that I should take the ridge opposite
where the deer were thought to be, and Mr. Corwin was to warn me by
firing two shots in rapid succession if he started the deer without
getting a shot at them.
I was familiar with the woods and knew about where the deer would run
when started up from any particular point. I had gone down the ridge
until I thought that I was below the point where the deer would have
crossed had they done so during the night, or if Mr. Corwin should
start them. I had neither heard anything from Mr. Corwin nor seen
anything of the deer trail. I had given up hope of Mr. Corwin
starting the deer so they would be likely to come my way.
I had struck the trail of a single deer that was going down a short
sawtooth point or a short spur of the main ridge. The track had been
made during the night when it was still snowing and in some places it
was hard to follow the trail owing to so much snow falling. The track
led down this spur in the direction of low hemlocks. I was working my
way very carefully thinking that the deer had gone down into those
low hemlocks to get shelter from the storm and were lying down in the
thicket. The thicket was just over a little cone or ridge so that I
could not see the surface of the ground and I was dead sure that I
would catch my game lying in his bed.
In a moment a dozen deer came into sight as suddenly as though they
had come up out of the ground and I was suddenly taken with one of
the worst fevers that any man ever had. I at once began firing into
the bunch. The deer seemingly did not notice the report of the gun
but kept steadily on their trail. I knew the condition I was in and
that I was shooting wide of the mark. I then singled out one of the
largest deer, a good sized buck, and tried to pick out a spot on the
back of his shoulders as though I was shooting at a target. I could
not keep the gun within range of the deer by ten feet, so when I
thought the gun had jumped into line, I pulled the trigger. The deer
made no alteration in its course or speed but kept steadily bounding
along. The deer were not more than forty yards from me. I dropped on
one knee and leaned the gun across my knee, grabbed a handful of snow
and jammed it into my face, then placed the gun to my face and began
firing at the deer again with no better results.
When the bunch of deer were nearly a hundred yards away and they had
all passed over the brow of the hill, except one large doe that was a
little behind the rest, the fever left me as suddenly as it came on.
I pulled the gun onto her and fired. She staggered, gave a lunge down
the hill and fell dead. I could have told within an inch of where the
ball struck her before I went to the deer. I could not have told
within fifty feet of where my other shots went.
I followed my drove of deer a short distance to make sure that I had
not wounded any of them and then I dragged the doe down into the
hollow to dress and hang up. Pretty soon Mr. Corwin came to me and
seeing only the one deer asked me if that was the only one I had
killed with all that shooting. Mr. Corwin said that he had counted
nine shots that I had fired. When I told him the story he had a
hearty laugh of half an hour and said that I was lucky that I did not
die in a fit.
Now boys, you who have never had the buck fever can laugh at me all
you like, but those who are over fond of the chase and get the buck
fever will sympathize with me. Had I been expecting and looking for
this drove of deer at the time instead of only one deer I should not
have been attacked with this case of buck fever.
Now, I will tell you of another case of buck fever from a cause
entirely different from that just related. I was following the trail
and there was just enough snow on the ground to make the best of
still hunting. The wind was blowing just strong enough to make a
noise in the tree tops overhead to drown any noise that the hunter
might make by stepping on a dry limb, and every once in a while there
would come a snow squall that would be so dense that you could see
scarcely fifty feet.
I had trailed the doe along the side of the hill for some distance.
She was feeding alone and I was working along very carefully, keeping
along the ridge several yards above the trail, to always be on
advantage ground. I had not seen the trail of any other deer during
the morning although it was in the height of the mating season, or as
us common folks call it, the running season. I was trailing the doe
along through a small basin where the timber was nearly all hardwood,
beech and maple, and the woods were very open. I was quite positive
that the doe was not far in advance for she had just been feeding on
some moss from a limb that had blown down from a tree and the tracks
were very fresh. About this time one of those snow squalls had come
up. I was standing by a large maple tree waiting for the squall to
pass by so that I could look the ground over well before I went any
farther.
After the squall had passed I looked the ground over closely but
could see nothing of my deer. Forty or fifty yards farther along the
side of the hill and below me there was a very large maple tree which
had turned up by the roots. This tree hid from view a piece of ground
close to the log. I could see that the trail led directly up to the
tree. I could see a slight break in the snow on top of the log that I
took to be made by the leg of the deer in jumping the log. I could
see nothing of the trail beyond the tree so I worked very cautiously
along until I could see past the root of the tree and as I suspected,
there stood my game with head down, apparently asleep and standing
broadside to me. I drew the gun onto a point just back of her
shoulders and let go and the deer dropped almost in her tracks.
I cut the deer's throat and began to skin out the foreparts. I had
only partly gotten my work done when another one of those snow
squalls came along. I was bending over the deer, busy at work when I
heard a slight noise, and straightened up to see what had caused it.
I looked none too soon to save myself from a terrible thrust from the
horns of a large buck deer, for as I straightened up the deer shot
past me like a shot from a gun, barely missing me and landed some six
or eight feet beyond me. I had stood my gun against the log 8 or 10
feet from me. I sprang for my gun but I was trembling so that I could
do nothing and I could scarcely stand on my feet. The buck stood for
a moment looking back over his shoulders. Every hair on his back
stood up like the hair on the back of an angry dog and I well
remember the color of his eyes which were as green as grass.
The deer stood and gazed at me for a moment then slowly walked off.
The deer had gone some distance before I could control myself
sufficiently to shoot. The buck had followed the trail of the doe up
to the fallen tree and had caught me skinning her and it angered him.
Instead of running off he was determined to attack me and the only
thing that saved me from being severely hurt was my straightening up
just at the right time to miss the thrust of the buck and the deer's
missing me was what caused him to leave me.
This was the worst case of buck fever that I have ever had and I do
not care to ever experience a case of that kind again.