Text 476, 151 rader
Skriven 2004-10-23 03:56:06 av Greg Sears (1:153/307)
     Kommentar till en text av Dave Coble
Ärende: Ha ha
=============
Melvin The Hunter Gets A Great Picture

I've been told that the deer we have here in NC are small compared to the
size of the ones in the western states.  This is the story about a hunter
who shot the largest deer of his life in Jackson County, Colorado.
Melvin got up early to go hunting one morning.  He was up at 3:30 am and
dressed to kill in a tree stand by 4:30 am.  Supposedly, the early
morning hours are a great time to go hunting.  Why?  Deer are similar to
humans in one aspect.  When they wake up in the morning, one of the first
things they do is go to the fridge and get a drink.  But in their case
it's not a fridge, it's a creek or a pond.  The trick to bagging a deer
in the morning is to situate yourself in a tree near a body of water.
Then all you gotta do is wait for the deer to come to you.

Melvin had seen tracks near a creek bed and knew deer frequently the
area. Since there were multiple tracks in the area, he figured that he
would have his choice over which one to shoot.  At about 5:30 am, he got
his wish. Three deer traveling together walked up to the creek to get a
drink.  It looked like a large buck traveling with two doe.
Melvin raised his rifle and used the pre-dawn morning light and the scope
to decide which one to shoot.  It wasn't much of a choice really.  As
Melvin centered the crosshairs on the huge 12-point buck he was
visualizing the animal's head mounted on the wall of his den.  He dropped
it on the first shot.  The two doe got away unharmed.

Happy with his kill, he climbed out of the tree stand to inspect his
trophy. Then Melvin realized he had a problem.  Since he was hunting
alone, (none of his buddies wanted to get up that early,) he had to
figure out how to get a 300-pound deer back to his truck.  Plus he wanted
to get a picture of himself standing next to his "trophy kill."

To get a great show-and-tell picture, Melvin wanted to drag the deer to a
clearing with a tree line in the background so he would have the perfect
setting for the framed photo he was visualizing on the wall next to the
deer's head.  There was one obstacle that stood in his way.  Melvin
wasn't in the best shape to be dragging something this heavy more than a
few feet.

The clearing was a good 50 yards away.

Melvin was in his 50's and it had been years since he had done any
exercise. After pausing to reflect on his dilemma, he figured out how to
make his task easier.  He drove his pickup down to the creek bed and got
some tie-downs out of his truck (the type you would use to strap a
motorcycle in the back.) He looped them around the deer's upper torso and
hooked it up to the trailer hitch.  Melvin then dragged the hunting
trophy to the scenic clearing where he wanted to take the deer's picture.

Once he got there, he dropped off the deer and moved the truck out of the
way and pulled out his digital camera and tripod.  He really wished his
friends had come with him to take this picture but since they didn't, he
was going to use the auto-timer on the camera.  Once set, he would have
30 seconds to get in the scene with the deer and pose with it for his
"trophy picture."  Since it was still kinda dark, he decided to wait
until the sun came up so there would be more light in the photo.  So he
sat in the truck and listened to the radio and ate some beef jerky.

An hour later the sun was up, the sky was blue, and it was a perfect day.
Melvin set the auto-timer on his Kodak and ran around behind the deer.
His dream photo involved the deer's head turned toward the camera
prominently displaying the 12-point rack with Melvin crouched down behind
it with his hunting rifle in hand and a look of pride on his face.

It would be the kind of picture you would expect to see on the cover of a
hunting magazine.    Melvin had 30 seconds to make that visual into a
reality.  The problem was that the deer had "stiffened up" considerably
since he shot it.  He was having trouble getting the dead dear's head to
turn toward the camera with his one free hand.  The rifle was in his
other hand.

He could hear the camera beeping and knew that as the beeps got closer
together, the camera would be taking a picture soon.  Melvin realized
that he was going to have to use two hands to get the dear head into the
desired pose.

This is where things went horribly wrong.

Melvin needed to put down the rifle and use both hands to pose the deer,
but instead of putting the gun down on the ground like a normal person
would, he propped his rifle on the deer's antlers!  When you think about
the logic behind that decision, it's probably because the rack on a deer
is geometrically similar to a gunrack.

The beeps emanating from the camera were getting closer together.  Melvin
still didn't have the deer's head turned.  His heartbeat was increasing
with the camera's beeps and he started to panic.  In a last ditch effort
he grabbed the antlers and used all of his weight to turn the deer's
head.  As the eyes of the deer turned toward the camera, the rifle
shifted on the antlers.  One of the points on the deer's rack went into
the trigger guard similar to the way a finger would.

The camera started beeping in a rapid fire succession.

I know what you are thinking.  Surely the rifle wasn't still loaded.  But
then again, I wouldn't be writing this if it were unloaded would I?
"BOOM!"  The rifle fired.

The bullet entered Melvin's right hand and blew off his thumb.  Melvin
grabbed his bloody hand and started shrieking in pain and jumping up and
down.

All of a sudden there was a flash of white light followed by a clicking
sound.

Melvin got his trophy picture, but it wasn't quite the photo he had
dreamed about!

He looked down and saw that the deer was ok.  His errant gunshot hadn't
damaged the prize rack on the poor deer.  (Of course it was already
dead.).
Then he realized that he didn't see his thumb anywhere in the vicinity.
Melvin's head was filled with horror and panic and indecision about what
to do.  All he could think of was that if his friends had come with him
this would never have happened.

It finally dawned on Melvin that he had a cell phone in the truck, which
he then used to call for help.  He described his remote location as best
as he could to the operator who answered the emergency call.  The voice
on the phone then told Melvin that he needed to find some way to control
the bleeding until the rescue squad arrived.  He thanked the operator and
reminded him to tell the EMT's to bring a bag of ice to transport his
thumb. Melvin didn't have any bandages in the truck, so he used the only
thing in the truck's toolbox that was appropriate.

Can you guess what it was?  I'll give you a hint.  You can probably find
this in every Redneck's toolbox.

Melvin wrapped his right hand up in duct tape.  Then he went back to
search the clearing for his missing thumb.  Apparently it had traveled a
lot farther than he thought.

This story is based on a news item from the Police Report column of the
Jackson County Star.  No, they didn't publish the "trophy" picture, but
it wouldn't surprise me if it ends up on the Internet eventually.  The
only thing that could have made the above story more comical would be if
Melvin had tried to duct tape his thumb back on his hand.

This incident occurred back in October of 2001.  Forgive my tardiness in
reporting it.  The newspaper didn't say if surgeons were able to reattach
the thumb.

         ,-.___,-.
 Cheers  \_/_ _\_/
  from     )O_O(
   the    { (_) }
 I C E-man `-^-' DILLIGAFF

... v0.46: MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!

--- EzyBlueWave V2.01b005 00F90260
 * Origin: Milky Way, Langley, BC [604] 532-4367 (1:153/307)