James Tomberlin, my predecessor to the graduate project I am now working on, showed me the ropes of darting deer.
#1 Rule - watch out for ‘Murphy’…what can go wrong, probably will! My first darting experience was early July in 2006. In the very first evening in stand, I witnessed ‘Bo Derek’ and was absolutely shocked at the size of some of the bucks roaming around the farm. We guessed him in the 190 class range. Sure enough, I picked up one shed last October and someone had the other. Right under 200″ gross NT. My first opportunity came a couple of nights later, but I centered the hindquarter of a 2.5 year old a little too much and had a dart bounce out (first time I shook hands with ‘Murphy’ during deer darting).

About a week later, after I had helped James process two 2.5 year olds that he had darted, I got my second opportunity. At dawn, deer started pouring into a clover field that I was watching…does and bucks alike. At one point there were 5 or 6 shooter bucks in the field including an old bruiser non-typical. Unfortunately, the field started clearing out around 8:00 a.m. and there was only 2 deer left in the field by 8:30 a.m…both good shooter bucks. Just when it looked like they were going to exit the field 60 yards to my right, I made one last attempt to get a shot by making some deer noises (little fawn ‘mewww’ and a soft grunt) with my mouth. I’m not sure if they heard me or just happened to wander past me, but at 22 yards I let the gas out of the gun and sent a dart on its way.

I darted the buck in the back and as he ran off, I could see the dart lodged securely in his ham. At the edge of the field, he slowed to a walk and then ducked down a trail and out of sight. After radioing the crew, we headed to the trail I saw him enter and turned on the telemetry equipment (the dart has a radio transmitter in the tailpiece that allows us to track the darted deer). BEEP, BEEP, BEEP…man he’s close! Oh crap! There’s the dart….apparently as soon as the deer entered the woods, he reached back and plucked the dart from his rear end (there were some teeth mark on the dart). Blind luck now, we spread and out and started walking trails. About 10 minutes later, I spotted him lying in the woods.

After a some photographs, we got him processed and woke him back up. My first darted buck. Probably just a 2 year old, but real nice buck. 6 on one side and 4 on the other.  Unfortunately, his GPS collar fell off right before we got meaningful data for the study I am conducting during the Maryland firearms season.  But I did title this post, ‘the first go round!’.  We meet again in 2007, but you’ll have to wait for that.