GLADWIN, MI – Walking the boundary of his nearly 300 acres Sunday morning, avid deer hunter Norm Hoffman came across a dead whitetail buck. Hoffman, a 71-year-old retired tool and die maker, estimates the deer to be about 9 years old. The buck was found laying against the trunk of an oak tree, dead from apparent natural causes.
“This shouldn’t happen,” Hoffman said, fighting back tears. “A beautiful, 10-point deer should never die in a peaceful and serene manner. His last seconds should be ones of sheer pain and terror. Not like… not like this.”
With Michigan’s regular firearm deer season next week, Hoffman said the timing could not have been worse.
“To think that if he could have held on a couple more days, I could have been here to end his life the way he deserved,” Hoffman said. “That’s what really gets me.”
Michigan’s archery season ended Saturday, meaning Hoffman had spent the previous six weeks with the opportunity to harvest the buck with a bow. He said he partially blames himself for the unfortunate mishap.
“I knew I should have gone bow hunting this year,” Hoffman said. “But like this boy, I am getting older. Not as good with a bow as I used to be. The last thing I wanted to do was take a shot, miss, and scare him unnecessarily.”
Like many other oddball inhabitants of northern Michigan, Hoffman has cultivated a relationship with the whitetail herd living near his home.
“Over the years, he showed up a few times on my trail cams,” Hoffman recalled. “I gave him the name D.P. in honor of the world’s greatest entertainer, Dolly Parton. He might not have had the biggest rack I’ve ever seen, but heaven almighty, from where I sat, it looked just about perfect.”
The whitetail’s untimely death hasn’t overly dampened Hoffman’s spirits. He still plans to be in his stand throughout the firearm season. But now he’ll be doing so with a mission: to not let this tragedy happen again.
“I’ll be there,” he said. “With the good Lord steadying my hand, I’ll be ready. If I see a buck worth taking, I’ll have something for him… that being a .30-06 bullet placed lovingly through his heart and lungs.”
