When the late Gary Clancy asked me if I wanted his deer, I told him I’d take it. We were hunting whitetails in Saskatchewan with a film crew from Realtree, but the weather was all wrong for a big buck. Instead of cold temps and plenty of snow, it was balmy. The woods were dry, and deer weren’t cooperative. Gary, a well- known outdoor writer who lived in Minnesota, had flown to the hunt. I drove my pickup to Canada from Wyoming. He had taken a modest 6 point buck, the only deer killed on the hunt, and decided not to ship the processed meat home. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was about to be involved in a profoundly frustrating adventure.
On April 11, 2018, Pat McManus, one of America’s greatest humor writers passed away. He was known far and wide for his humor columns in Field and Stream and Outdoor Life, as well as stories in Readers Digest, and, of course, his many books and plays.
My cameraman and I had flown into Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to film a black bear hunt with Linda Powell. She was Press Relations Manager for a firearms company and was hosting a hunt with a group of outdoor writers. My cameraman, who I'll call Larry, and I were going through customs. He was carrying a huge camera that was probably two feet long. I breezed through customs, but a female agent who spotted the camera confronted Larry and asked him a number of questions. We were vaguely aware of a Canadian work permit, but didn't have one. We'd been to Canada many times before with no problems but we'd heard the agents were cracking down. Larry invented fib after fib as the agent kept up the interrogation. He said he was just tagging along as a friend and filming the hunt for personal use. Finally, the agent stuck her finger in Larry's chest and said, "I'm tired of your bullshitting. You guys are up here on business. I'm deporting you right now." And she led Larry away where he went to a departure gate for a flight back home. Work permits protect Canadians who could do the work, rather than an American. In other words, I could have hired a Canadian cameraman. I was ok to go because there's only one me. No one else could obviously fulfill my role on my TV show.
This animal is an example of the enormous number of deer struck by vehicles each year. The toll is mind boggling. According to recent statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are one and a half million collisions with deer each year. Some 150 people are killed in those collisions. Vehicle damage is more than one billion dollars annually. According to State Farm Insurance, Pennsylvania leads the states with 115,000 collisions; Michigan is second with 97,000, and New York follows with 80,000 These figures are low, since many collisions are unreported. The number of deer struck is low also, since many run off into the woods and die.
There are still some hunters today who believe that does should never be targeted, no matter the circumstances. That attitude is centered on the notion that the more does, the more breeding animals, and therefore more bucks later on. That was the prevailing attitude when I was a teenager. It was considered a cardinal sin to shoot a doe. Biologists held town meetings to explain new wildlife management practices.
