Entangled buck tows boat

[Lee Borgersen]

Entangled buck tows boat through Woodland neighborhood
 



  .....
On a recent Monday morning, Ardy Stabs of Duluth’s Woodland neighborhood was hauling out his garbage when he saw something he’d never seen before.

 


It was a good-sized whitetail buck, perhaps a six- or eight-pointer, pulling a 12-foot aluminum boat — on a trailer. On top of the boat lay three good-size ladders.

The buck’s antlers had apparently been snagged in some rope or cord, perhaps a clothesline or part of a hammock, Stabs said. Somehow, the mesh of the rope had become tangled around the tongue of the boat’s trailer. The buck was struggling to extricate its antlers from the trailer by tugging in a backward motion again and again.

“He was straining so hard that he was leaping up in the air,” Stabs said.


Stabs watched the drama unfold. He called his wife out to watch. He called the neighbor who owned the boat.

“I told him to look out the back window because a deer was stealing his boat,” Stabs said. “He thought I was kidding until he looked out his back window and witnessed the event himself.”

The tug of war went on for 30 to 40 minutes, Stabs estimated. He watched the buck yank the boat through three yards, the tongue of the trailer carving a small furrow in the turf of people’s yards.

“The whole thing had to weigh several hundred pounds,” Stabs said.

Then the buck made a 180-degree turn and tugged the whole works back into Stabs’ yard.

 

A white-tailed buck struggles to free itself from a boat trailer that it had become entangled with in Duluth’s Woodland neighborhood recently. The buck towed the boat and trailer through three yards before breaking free. (Photo by Ardy Stabs)

When the deer and the boat became tangled in a small tree, Stabs began to take a few photos. He also called 911 to see if someone could come and free the deer.


“The deer kept jumping and pulling the boat and trailer and finally frayed the cord enough that it broke loose,” Stabs said.

Once free, the exhausted buck didn’t run off but slowly walked away, Stabs said.

“I’m sure it was near exhaustion,” he said.

It took Stabs and two neighbors to lug the trailered boat and ladders back to his neighbor’s yard.

“If you live long enough,” Stabs said, “you’ll see it all.”


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[Lee Borgersen]

.. A little background on unlucky buck
 
 Nov 9, 2015






  ......
After the News story on Saturday about the whitetail buck that pulled a trailered boat across three yards in the Woodland neighborhood of Duluth, Woodland residents Susan Kehtel and Amy Galarowicz offered some background about the buck's travails.

 



If you missed the story, Woodland resident Ardy Stabs on Oct. 26 watched the buck struggling to extricate itself from a boat trailer. The unfortunate buck had the woven rope from a hammock in its antlers and somehow had tangled that mesh with the trailer hitch.

Here's the background on the buck, as emailed from Kehtel and Galarowicz, who live within about a mile of Stabs: "He stole the hammock out of our back yard this September. It was an early morning struggle for him. He managed to unhook one side of the rope hammock from one tree, but he was not able to free himself from the other side. We did help him out by unleashing the other side from the tree, but he was extremely agitated and nervous. He took off into the woods behind our house with the entire hammock in his rack.


"At the time, we guessed he was about six or eight points. He was massive. ... We let our immediate neighbors know that if they saw a buck wearing our hammock to let us know. Our one neighbor did spot him out in the woods later that morning (hammock still in his rack). We also reported it to 911, and the responding officer suggested that if (the buck) came back to our yard, we should call them. We highly doubted he would return, as our yard was nearly the end of him.


"We were happy to see he has freed himself from most of the hammock, but sadly, his life of crime continues."

There are no further updates on the plight of the buck.

[Bobby Bass]

Buck luck run out 

The Woodland neighborhood buck that's been wearing portions of a hammock in his antlers for more than a month met his end Tuesday evening. A bowhunter in Rice Lake, immediately adjacent to the Woodland neighborhood, shot the buck as much to put it out of its misery as to acquire some venison, he said.

"I know myself I did the right thing," said Corey Johnson, the Rice Lake bowhunter. "He was thin and gaunt. He should have been a lot bigger body-size."
The nine-point buck had first become entangled in late September, according to Woodland neighborhood homeowners who saw the buck trying to free itself from their hammock. In late October, another Woodland resident watched the buck get the rope tangled with a boat trailer hitch and drag the boat and trailer across three people's lawns before eventually freeing itself.
On Tuesday evening, the buck was carrying a load of wet hammock and brush so heavy that it couldn't walk with its head upright, Johnson said.

"He had his head pulled down to the ground," Johnson said. "His left eye was to the ground, and his right eye was to the sky. He could only go three or four steps at a time. Then he'd get caught in the brush or step on the mess of rope."

Johnson had read news reports about the buck but said he wasn't looking for that specific buck when hunting on his mother's property Tuesday evening just before sunset. The buck walked directly under Johnson's tree stand, he said.

"I made a humane shot on him," he said. "In my opinion, he was suffering, and it was an ethical thing to do. He definitely wasn't eating. I was actually sad."
He said he wanted people to know the buck wasn't suffering anymore.
Later Tuesday evening, Johnson removed the tangled mess of hammock from the buck's antlers. He estimated the material weighed 20 to 25 pounds.

"It took me a half an hour with a screwdriver and a sharp knife to get that mess undone," Johnson said. "It was all wet and damp. I think it was almost the whole hammock. It had the wooden slats. There had to be six or seven pieces of wood and all this rope."

Johnson knows Woodland resident Ardy Stabs, who reported the buck pulling the boat and trailer in late October. Johnson estimated that he shot the buck about three-fourths of a mile or so from Stabs' residence.

From the Duluth News Tribune

[dew2]

Kudos to Corey Johnson!!!
 meat filled with testosterone and probably tough!

[Bobby Bass]

Kudos to Corey Johnson!!!
 meat filled with testosterone and probably tough!

So are you saying taking that buck was not a good idea? Just asking 

[dew2]

Kudos to Corey Johnson!!!
 meat filled with testosterone and probably tough!

So are you saying taking that buck was not a good idea? Just asking 

No It should have been put down or suffer a long slow death. The meats taste may be altered from struggling so much.