Bringing A Knife To An Antler Fight
An Arkansas man managed to fight off an overly aggressive buck using only a hunting knife. Greg Vincent thought he was telling a joke when he told his son he'd use the knife to defend them - then the deer charged.
"We had left our guns at the camp, and all I had was a hunting knife," he said.
Most deer will run off when they see a person. Not this one.
"I took out my knife and jokingly told the boys I would take care of the deer if it attacked," he said. Then the animal lowered its head, shook its antlers, snorted, pawed the ground and advanced on them.
It got close to Kyle, and that's when Vincent rushed the animal. He grabbed the antlers, jerked the deer's head around and stabbed it in the ribs. Vincent said he hoped that would make the animal run away, but the animal kept struggling.
Vincent hung onto the deer's neck as they tumbled into a creek and he dropped the knife. He yelled for the boys to find the knife, and nephew Dillon Vincent placed the knife in his uncle's hand.
"When I stabbed the neck, I pulled the knife as hard as I could," Greg Vincent said, ripping a large gash that probably would have been fatal. The deer continued to struggle but was growing weaker. Vincent, who was a competitive weightlifter in high school, was tiring, too. Within moments, his father, Harvey Vincent, finished off the animal with a shot from Kyle's rifle.
That kind of behavior is fairly unusual, even during the rutting season. It may have been a hit deer from the Animal Uprising™. It could have been worse, though. It could have been a giant hermaphrodite demon deer.
By Sylvia, Wednesday, 7 November , 2007 @ 11:00 am
Yikes. Glad the family was able to work together so well — a large buck is pure muscle, focused will, and spikey antlers!
We’ve had mild difficulties with a 4-pointer here. He is fond of our fruit trees and doesn’t like to let DD go down the driveway on the way to school in the morning. We keep an old bright yellow umbrella nearby — open and close it quickly and the deer will scatter. It sounds like giant predatory wingbeats and who knows what their brains think of the visuals.