Well armed works best for peckish, bellicose deer

Dear Otus,

My buddies and I always like to wait a few days each modern gun season before heading to the deer woods in order to let the army of hunters thin out. We'll be headed to our deer camp near Smackover this weekend and we want to make sure we have the best gear.

My brother-in-law claims that he's had the most luck with his Remington Model 700. I say you can't beat the Winchester Model 88 chambered to a .308 round.

We've found your advice invaluable over the years. Would you care to weigh in?

-- Norville Rogers,

Camden

Dear Norville,

It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and commend you for your patience. I understand that opening day (Nov. 11) saw a record 302,000 licensed hunters in the woods. Portions of Interstate 40 were like a parking lot.

That many hunters is more than the standing army of Colombia (293,000) and almost twice as many as Germany (176,000).

You live in Zone 12 where modern gun season runs uninterrupted for nearly 40 days, so you can afford to wait.

Last year, almost 70 percent of the state's hunters bagged a deer for a total of 202,070. That's a statistical average of 1.2 deer each. It was the fifth straight year that we harvested more than 200,000 deer, yet we're still butt-deep in the critters because they reproduce like stoats.

Early reports confirm the preseason warning from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission: "Do not go into the deer woods under-armed this season. The whitetails are more organized and dangerous than ever."

Wildlife officials blame the warm, dry fall for causing an acorn shortage. This has made the deer peckish and inclined to bellicose belligerence.

Already, 247 cases of antler rage have been reported by hunters who hit the deer woods early. If you're going after that record rack, better go heavily armed and always hunt in pairs.

Experts have always agreed that there is no such thing as the "perfect" deer rifle. The weapon must fit the hunting conditions -- open fields or dense woods -- and be mated to the proper bullet.

The kill zone of even the smallest deer is about the size of a basketball. Few among us (other than military-trained snipers) would attempt to put a round through a basketball at much farther than 250 yards. And that's with at least a 4X scope.

Statistics kept since 1974 have shown that the vast majority of deer are harvested between 50 and 200 yards. That is, until recently. Increasingly, deer have lost their fear of man. They have become urbanized, organized and stealthy.

One still-shaken hunter from Fordyce reported Tuesday that he finally stopped a wounded charging buck with a .375 Winchester at only 10 yards. The animal made it the final five yards after being hit twice.

Close call. The creature's G-3 tines were 13 and 12 inches on a 12-point frame with a spread of 23 inches for an impressive 199 points. Imagine a weaponized Bambi bearing down on you.

The average whitetail buck weighs around 200 pounds, but some can push 300. And charging bucks have been clocked at 48 mph over short distances.

AGFC notes that when operating in roving "hunter/killer" packs, whitetail have been known to distract lone hunters by using a browsing doe decoy while the older, more experienced bucks cut around and attack behind.

Hank Hirschjager, AGFC ordnance director, suggests that hunters take the appropriate precautions this season.

"The whitetail is a cunning, devious and dangerous adversary," Hirschjager says. "When organized into hunter/killer units, they are the epitome of evil. You could call them the minions of Mephistopheles, the servants of Satan, the apostles of Apollyon.

"Treating deer as docile herd animals could prove fatal in the deep woods. The new breed of urbanized whitetail are beasts of Beelzebub, the disciples of Diabolus, Lucifer's lackeys."

Hirschjager suggests the lead hunter arm himself with a .270 Winchester firing 130-grain Hornady boat tail spire points powered by 60 grains of smokeless H4831SC powder.

For close-in stopping power, the second squad member should be carrying a semiautomatic Smith & Wesson M&P15-22 Sport with 25-round banana clip (see photo), firing .22 LR. That'll chew up any deer that breaks the perimeter.

Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that in Austrian Felix Salten's 1923 original book, Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, Bambi was a roe deer, not a whitetail, but still had his sanguinary revenge on the mother-killing hunters.

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