Gawkers!!

This is the kind of deer I like to hunt. Gawkers. Gawkers are great for hunting because they just stand there and stare while you run back to the truck to get the gun(or camera in this case) that you forgot to bring out with you. The other type of deer or elk is the Runner. These, as the name implies, take off running into the deepest, darkest, bushiest, steepest canyon imaginable at the first sound of your pick-up 2 miles away. So you rarely get even a glimpse of those. I have on a few rare occasions seen runners before so I do know they exist. I happened to be a passenger a couple times in a truck with a gasoline motor instead of my clanging diesel, and we were able to sneak up on a herd of runners. We saw them long enough to determine that they were indeed elk, and they were indeed running. (you usually will see them for about 3 seconds.) Deer with big racks like the one in this pic are generally of the runner gene pool. That's how they live long enough for their antlers to get so big. So you can understand my amazement that this deer stood there for the 3 minutes it took for me to remember I had a camera, the 1 minute it took to decide to quit looking long enough to go get said camera, the 2 minutes it took to get the camera out and get back to the view and the 5 minutes I spent taking shots of this deer. Then the real amazement came when I downloaded the picture and discovered that there were 2 more gawkers in the picture. (I had not noticed them when I was watching the big one!) My new theory is that they are really runners but have discovered how to read and they found a copy of the hunting regulations that some discouraged hunter threw in the brush after not getting a shot off at the runners for the 100th time. Now that they have this information all hunters are in trouble. The runners now know when they can be shot at and when they cannot be shot at. So now the runners are just standing there looking like a gawker, taunting me because it knows I cannot shoot it legally so I won't shoot at it. (kind of a risky assumption in Sweet home area) So when hunting season rolls around again. I will load up the rifle, and drive my clanging diesel up to see if I can find this "Gawker" again. I'm sure he and his buddies will be laughing up a storm in that deep, dark, steep, brushy canyon. Oh well, I'll just shoot a real gawker. They taste better anyway. Runners work out too much and their muscles are too tough. Gawkers are nice and tender from so much gawking and eating and not running. Those big antlers don't taste very good anyway!