Gun deer season closes on Sunday in these parts, but David Lee already has his buck and he never fired a shot.
Not that Lee needs the meat. He owns Ivan’s Meat Market at 2101 N. Second St. in Rogers. The 10-point buck was laying in the front parking lot of the meat market ready for processing when Lee arrived for work about 6:45 a.m. Nov. 5.
It was first light, the best time for hunting deer or peeling one off the asphalt.
The buck evidently met its end by an accurate shot from a front bumper. There were pieces of broken car parts in the parking lot so that’s likely what happened, Lee speculated.
“The deer was still warm when we found it so it must have just happened a few minutes earlier,” he said.
Plus, the deer had an impressive hat-rack of antlers. Someone would have made off with them if the buck had been dead for awhile.
The speed limit on North Second in front of Ivan’s is a peppy 45 mph. A thump from a bumper would easily park the deer conveniently in the meat market lot, not far from the front door.
A doe’s tail may have been the last thing the buck saw.
Early November is mating season for white-tail deer.
Bucks throw caution aside looking for does in heat and routinely sprint into traffic.
Lee dragged the big buck behind the market, field dressed it and processed the meat. There was little damage to the venison considering the deer’s fourwheeled fate.
The antlers are being mounted as a souvenir to display inside at Ivan’s.
“We’re making a shadow box of the car parts to hang up with the antlers,” Lee said
They named the buck “Destiny” because it may have been in the cards for the buck to succumb in the parking lot of a meat market.
Lee said he hasn’t hunted deer lately, “but I have in the past. Doing what I do I don’t really need the meat.”
He won’t be perched in a tree stand when gun deer season closes Sunday evening, but a grilled venison cheeseburger might be in order to mark the occasion.
Outdoor, Pages 7 on 12/03/2009