 Strange
sightings in the woods usually go with the line, “Sure
you did.” But Phil Meier of Winton has the pictures
to prove his story is no tall tale.
Phil and his dad Dwayne were fishing
on Crooked Lake and had come into their campsite with
some walleyes to cook up for dinner.
While Phil went back into the woods
to gather some firewood, Dwayne took out his fillet
knife and unhooked a walleye from the stringer to get
it ready for the frying pan.
Everything up until that point had been
going just fine. But, according to Phil, it was then
that some weird stuff took place.
“I heard something right behind
me. A deer came walking probably within three or four
feet away. I could’ve tackled it,” said Phil.
But this deer was not interested in
a guy gathering firewood, she had dinner on her mind.
The deer walked right through the campsite and went
straight down to the water.
At this point Dwayne had a walleye filleted
and had tossed the carcass aside as he started on another
fish. The deer went right down to the lake, found the
carcass and plucked it out of the water.
“It was hanging out of her mouth
like a wet noodle, then the deer walked down the shoreline
a little ways and started eating it.”
Okay, this is when you get that quizzical
look.
“I wouldn’t have believed
it if I wouldn’t have seen it myself. The deer
grabbed the fish by the tail and it crunched the whole
thing right up to the head. It left the head but it
ate the whole backbone,” said Phil.
Knowing that people would not believe
this story, Phil ran and grabbed his camera and another
fish carcass.
“I carried the fish over to the
deer and got within four feet and tossed it over. The
deer jumped back but it stayed there. So I took some
pictures.
“It took a long time for the deer
to eat one fish but it was so loud, you could hear it
crunching and it was probably 50 feet away from our
tent,” said Phil.
So, believe it or not, there is a fish-eating
deer on Crooked Lake giving the eagles a run for their
money.
The deer is described as a small doe
that was still losing its winter coat. We’re not
sure if walleyes are the deer’s preferred piscatorial
delight, but we know one thing, this is going to revolutionize
the type of deer scent used by hunters this fall.
Special thanks to
Andy Pichotta for sending me this gem... |
