I hate to say it but my Toyota Corolla is a better hunter than I am… It racked up two kills this weekend while I am still turkeyless.

Please don’t take this humorous post the wrong way, because I am truly horrified at what happened. However there was nothing I could do about either, so I am left to deal with my guilt by writing about it. But I guess I have to tell the whole story for you to understand.

As everyone knows, I have been VERY busy lately with work, and I haven’t had much time to hunt. And on top of that, the few times I have gone, the weather has not cooperated. And the turkeys sure have not cooperated either. So when I hopped out of bed Saturday morning at 5:15am, I was jacked up and ready to go.

I slapped on my camo and was out of the door by 5:45. The weather was warm and there was no wind as I got in to my Toyota, so I was thinking I may finally kill something. And just seconds later as I turned on to the main road, I did… The neighbor’s cat!

It all happened so fast that I did not even have time to tap the breaks. The cat was in some bushes right off the road, and it shot right under my front tire. BUMP!

I couldn’t believe it. I hate killing anything that I am not going to eat, and I sure don’t like killing someone’s pet, even as an accident. However there was nothing I could do for the poor thing, so I continued on down the road. And as I got back up to speed, all I could think about was how lucky I was, and have been, that it wasn’t a deer.

I have been very lucky over the last few years and have managed to swerve, break or stop to keep from hitting them. And when you live in the middle of deer central, work at all hours and drive on country two lane roads, that is saying something. And it was this thought that was running through my head as I caught movement just one mile further down the road… It was a whole herd of does coming across!

And even though I was not going but 50mph, I had to slam on my breaks to keep from whacking one of the late crossers. Again, my thoughts turned to how lucky I have been not to tear up my car on one of these things, and how I better slow down further and pay even MORE attention. But that chunk of electrical stimulus had not even made it across a couple of synapses when WHAM!

A huge doe tried to make a last second leap from one side of the road to the other and caught the front bumper and hood of my car against her hip. I wasn’t going that fast, so luckily she did not come up and through my windshield, but instead was thrown off in to the ditch. She did a complete flip but was back up and running in a flash.

I don’t know for sure that the impact killed her since I couldn’t find her when I came back by later that morning. However I am sure that she had to go and bed up to deal with the shock, and she either made it or she didn’t. But that still doesn’t make me feel any better about it, nor does it fix my buckled hood. It also does nothing for the mental trauma that I suffered!

I finally made it to the woods about 6am and met up with a friend to hunt. However as daylight came, we could see a huge front moving in. And it must have messed with the birds since we only heard a few gobblers way off. Therefore we walked and called until the wind picked up and the rain started to fall around 10am.

I then headed home and “helped” my wife and kids get ready for their big trip out West. They are headed to California for 3 weeks to visit her grandparents, and I am left here to work, feed the dogs and try to kill a turkey before the season runs out on May 1st. However it looks like I may have to put down my Winchester and just drive through the woods like Mad Max to get one!

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