Hoping I Didn't Write Off Our Deer Season...

the spank

the spank

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Walking out to our blind yesterday morning in the pre-dawn darkness I was breaking trail through about a foot of snow with drifts above our knees in places on a canola stubble field that parallels the bush we have our blind set up in. I was going along at a good steady pace a few yards out from a fenceline that separates the bush pasture from the crop field when my right leg suddenly dropped like a ton of bricks and I did a face plant in the snow. I went to get back up and was stuck. My leg was underground almost to my knee and I could not pull it free of the hole. I stepped into a badger hole that was covered over with drifted snow completely unseen.
After a bit of maneuvering I was able to free my foot from my boot and leg from the hole. I laid back on my backpack for a second then rolled onto my side to pull my boot out of the hole to put back on my foot all the while keeping my bootless foot elevated free of the snow to keep dry. I could not budge my boot! Man was it wedged in there something wierd! After what seemed about two minutes of twisting and pulling I finally had my boot free'd of the hole and once more rolled onto my backpack and proceeded to put my boot back on. I whispered to my wife "ouch" and muffled a bit of a chuckle as I was still trying to remain in steatlh mode to sneak into the blind well before shooting time. We continued on, my ankle feeling a bit tender and at the gate leading to the bush discovered it wired shut so up and over we went and continued to the blind. We got settled in and as time passed I could feel my right boot getting tighter and tighter and I started to feel a small amount of pain. After about a 3.5 hour sit without seeing anything moving except geese we decided to call it a morning and head home with plans to sit at another blind we have located on another farm a few miles away. Well I was able to make it about as far as the fence using our shooting sticks as a walking stick-crutch before being in excruciating pain which actually is as I have a very high pain tolerance. I climbed the fence and had to wait for my wife to get the truck and return to get me.
And now I'm sitting home this morning reading threads on CGN with my ankle bandaged, elevated and iced waiting for my doctors office to open to see if she will send me for some X-Rays at a local clinic or just tell me to go sit for hours in Emerg, lol. I don't think I've broken anything but I want to get checked out to be certain. I am extremely thankful I did not tear my artificial knee out of the socket. That would not be good for sure! As a bonus I still have the canes I had purchased when I had my knees replaced. I was going to donate them to the local health authority but never got around to it.
Hopefully I haven't written off our deer season. We have 6 mule deer tags and 2 wt tags between us and it would be nice to fill at least one each. I am sure this news will please at least one CGN'r as he'll be glad I'm not out there shooting immature deer for at least a few days! :redface:
Here is a pic of the bandaged trophy ankle! I wonder what it measures? And do ankles go by green score or is there a drying period?! :p
 

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Your doctor will probably tell you to RICE it
Rest-Ice-compression-elevate your leg

Looks like you know that.

I’ve found Rum-Ice-Coke-elevate the glass helps also

Get those tags filled!!
 
Would snow shoes be a good idea, breaking trail in a snow covered field that likely has gopher and badger holes scattered around? Or is that just something ridiculous someone who hasn't ever gone hunting (I.e. me) would suggest? Lol
 
sucks to hear Spank, hopefully it's a quick mend for ya.
There are boots you can get to mobilize the ankle if you get desperate and need to get out to the blind regardless.
 
Scotty454 said:
Would snow shoes be a good idea, breaking trail in a snow covered field that likely has gopher and badger holes scattered around? Or is that just something ridiculous someone who hasn't ever gone hunting (I.e. me) would suggest? Lol
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It's funny my wife said the same thing last night. Usually I have my trails planned and know where there is any holes or obstacles that need detouring around but this year I had not yet gone into there from the direction we took due to the wind direction and the past couple years was praying for snow going into the third week of season. This year we had snow by the second day and enough that it covered up any holes. I think its time to do some gopher and badger control this spring! ;)

Thanks for all the well wishes. I am definitely following the RICE recovery plan and it is going pretty good. I am not taking any pain killers of any kind as I am not experiencing any but a little occasional discomfort so far this morning and I can walk without the cane again already. I'll still follow up with the doc to be sure but I am thinking I may be back in the blind by mid-week if this keeps up. I have until saturday before my wife returns to work on TMEP in B.C for her two week rotation to help her get a tag filled. Here is for hoping. She's the one responsible for getting me into this deer hunting gig or I'd still be hunting geese this time of year!
 
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take it easy spank. let it heal up well. here's one for you I was out hunting I come home. take my boots off in my place. I stubbed my toe so bad my foot was black and blue. that was a few weeks ago .. i really wanted to be out in the woods. but I figure I better heal up before going back. we had a good snowfall here. kinda makes me wonder how the animals will make it thru this.
 
Man that's rough, I lost most of last season to a foot injury, woke up morning of Oct 1 (start of any buck for mulies in BC) and couldn't walk.

Hope you have a speedy recovery and can get back out there.
 
Hahaha Suck it up princess! Maybe you can apply for a "Disability Permit" so you can hunt from your truck legally. Not sure who needs 6 mule deer in the freezer. Guess the CWD is out of control in your area! Let's get you all fired up and help the circulation a bit! Speed up the healing!! Just jokes, pal. Hope you didn't hurt yourself for real.
 
umchorn2 said:
Hahaha Suck it up princess! Maybe you can apply for a "Disability Permit" so you can hunt from your truck legally. Not sure who needs 6 mule deer in the freezer. Guess the CWD is out of control in your area! Let's get you all fired up and help the circulation a bit! Speed up the healing!! Just jokes, pal. Hope you didn't hurt yourself for real.
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Funny how the CWD originated from farms on the SK side but AB has testing available to hunters at no charge while SERM buries their heads in the sand and pretends they don't have it? As for the # of tags we have my wife and I each applied for both antlered and antlerless and we both were drawn. This year again the AB gov't issued two antlerless tags for the price of one but you don't find out if they are doing that until you buy your tag so that is how we ended up with the extra. The area I applied to is mandatory CWD testing, the area the wife applied to is not. Each year though we have shot a deer in each zone and I have turned the heads in for testing, even the whitetails and none have come back positive. Guess it's not as out of control as you seem to hope? :confused:

As for the disability permit sounds like a good plan! As you can see by my post last week I get better bucks in range in front of me just driving into a non-managed spot to hunt on a friend's land than you get in your $1640 per acre deer farm! ;)

Had I had a valid tag for that WMZ and the disability permit I could have taken that buck no muss no fuss! Truth be told I knew he was in the area. My friend saw him twice this summer and his nephews have a tag and are trying to get him. I was just as happy to see it as I would have been to shoot it and I know the young fellows have been putting in the work the past two years trying to get him. I texted them right away to let them know I'd just seen it and where on the property it walked into. I didn't apply to that area for antlered. My friend is kind enough to let me hunt his land when he could just say no my nephews have it so I just apply for antlerless each year and hunt that quarter of land. It's 15 minutes from my door and I've filled my antlerless tag there each year I've been drawn. I am quite happy with that. :)
 
the spank said:
Funny how the CWD originated from farms on the SK side but AB has testing available to hunters at no charge while SERM buries their heads in the sand and pretends they don't have it? As for the # of tags we have my wife and I each applied for both antlered and antlerless and we both were drawn. This year again the AB gov't issued two antlerless tags for the price of one but you don't find out if they are doing that until you buy your tag so that is how we ended up with the extra. The area I applied to is mandatory CWD testing, the area the wife applied to is not. Each year though we have shot a deer in each zone and I have turned the heads in for testing, even the whitetails and none have come back positive. Guess it's not as out of control as you seem to hope? :confused:

As for the disability permit sounds like a good plan! As you can see by my post last week I get better bucks in range in front of me just driving into a non-managed spot to hunt on a friend's land than you get in your $1640 per acre deer farm! ;)

Had I had a valid tag for that WMZ and the disability permit I could have taken that buck no muss no fuss! Truth be told I knew he was in the area. My friend saw him twice this summer and his nephews have a tag and are trying to get him. I was just as happy to see it as I would have been to shoot it and I know the young fellows have been putting in the work the past two years trying to get him. I texted them right away to let them know I'd just seen it and where on the property it walked into. I didn't apply to that area for antlered. My friend is kind enough to let me hunt his land when he could just say no my nephews have it so I just apply for antlerless each year and hunt that quarter of land. It's 15 minutes from my door and I've filled my antlerless tag there each year I've been drawn. I am quite happy with that. :)
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Many provincial wildlife departments issue more tags now for mule deer and whitetail than they should. Especially for antlerless deer. It's part of their CWD mitigation strategy. They believe that if more animals are harvested it reduces the transmission rates because animals are fewer and far between. But of course if more animals were in a given population and CWD was rampant then eventually a resistance trait would in theory manifest itself, become prevalent, and pass through the populations as a dominant trait through breeding as natural selection. Of course this can take a long time to occur and no one knows exactly when it would even happen or if it will happen. Resistance traits are evolutionary phenomenon that increase survivability of a species and usually does occur if the population is diverse enough and large enough.

Indeed this genetic phenominon is exemplified in humans in parts of Africa where prostitution is common and HIV is endemic. There is a small and I mean very small subset of the population that has a gene which prevents the HIV virus from binding to the cells receptor and thus prevents allowing the virus into the cell to alter the genome. The virus is at this point unable to replicate and HIV is not a problem for these people even though exposure is common.

Regarding the origins of CWD, I believe it was first observed in a wild captured mule deer in Colorado perhaps 60 years ago. No one really knows exactly how it first became CWD as we know it today but there are many speculations. As you know livestock was grazed in large herds in those States for the summer months and then herded up by cowboys and moved great distances to markets in large US cities. It is theorized that CWD is acually a variant of some pathological brain disease which originated in sheep as scrapie (or other livestock) which was endemic in those animals that originally came from Europe hundreds of years previous to it's manifestation and eventual discovery in wild cervids. But it could also be a spontaneous disease that originated in wild cervids independently.

In any event, CWD's prevalence is much higher in wild cervids like deer and elk than in any deer or elk farms. In farmed deer and elk, there is a certification program to deal with CWD and it's control. The prevention of the disease is tantamount and permits are actually required to transport elk. Elk need to be certified CWD free prior to transport and any dead animals need to be tested for CWD. This includes slaughtered animals. All animals need to be tagged and births and deaths recorded. Ranches are subject to government inspection. There are also requirements for fencing and handling facilities. A herd must be certified CWD free or else it could be destroyed if the disease is detected. That would be a significant financial hit for the owner and therefore a great incentive to remain CWD free. Indeed the land may never again be used for farming deer or elk and I believe at least 10 years must elapse before livestock can once again graze the land. It is extremely expensive to raise deer and elk. Indeed it is the most expensive of all livestock operations, and farmed deer and elk have the lowest incidence of CWD given the rigorous and costly standards that must be adhered to by ranchers. I know this because I have thoroughly investigated the industry because I have an interest in raising deer and elk.
 
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umchorn2 said:
Hahaha Suck it up princess! Maybe you can apply for a "Disability Permit" so you can hunt from your truck legally. Not sure who needs 6 mule deer in the freezer. Guess the CWD is out of control in your area! Let's get you all fired up and help the circulation a bit! Speed up the healing!! Just jokes, pal. Hope you didn't hurt yourself for real.
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Douchey post of the day.
 
doublelung said:
Douchey post of the day.
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Lets all act surprised, given the source! Or, maybe not so surprised.

Sorry to see you crippled up, Spank. BTDT. Still managed to get a decent buck into the truck, using a pulley and a couple poles sourced nearby! In my case it was back issues, that ended up with a spinal fusion surgery!

If y'all got a friend nearby that can help y'all out, so much the easier. Been done before, will be done again!
 
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