The 2005 deer season was off to a slow start.

It didn't look that way, at first. We set up our check station at 08:33, and the first hunter came out at 08:42. But no deer. He shot one, all right, but it was at the bottom of a canyon. He's headed to town to get help getting it out.

The first deer to actually come through the station didn't arrive until 09:26, and it'd already been checked by a warden in the field.

So, for a while, we were bored.

The feeling didn't last.

Antelope season has still got a couple weeks to run in this part of the state, and it seems a lot of folks waited on their antelope hunt so's they could combine it with their deer hunt.

At almost three dollars a gallon for gas, who can blame them?

One of the first antelope to come through was taken by a resident hunter, accompanied by his teenaged sons. His license said he'd lived here 52 years.

You hunt during any of those years?

"Oh, yeah!"

You ever kill anything?

"Well, sure!"

I wander back to my truck and take a picture of his license. He's a little concerned when I come back.

"Anything wrong?"

Sir, you got so many things wrong here, I don't know where to start. I point out the first line of instructions he failed to follow.

"Wait a minute. I need my glasses."

Youngest son rolls his eyes. Been seeing this behavior a lot in his Dad at this age. That middle-aged loss of vision at reading range. Explains a lot about the tag. Doubt if he had his reading glasses with him in the field when he killed his antelope. I go through and point out five different mistakes he made in completing his paperwork. Including marking "Nov" instead of "Oct" for the date of kill.

He might need to start packing those glasses into the field.

While the morning was slow for data, there was little idle time. Folks kept stopping by to ask questions, usually on either access to public lands, or on chronic wasting disease. Didn't get to finish the comics in the paper until well after lunch, which was after one o'clock. Didn't even have an opportunity to pour my second cup of coffee until 10:59.

True to the First Rule of Check Stations, I had a hunter show up almost immediately afterward, after just one sip of hot brew.

And he spit in my face.

Really.

After all these years, that was a first.

He didn't mean to, of course. Just hauled off and lobbed his mouthful of spit out his window, and the wind brought it all directly into my face and arm as I rounded his front fender. Got hit hard enough I could feel the wetness soaking through the shirt to my skin.

Lovely.

The hunter was immediately apologetic as I wiped his spit off my face. I wasn't really all that upset because, after all, it was the wind's doing, not his. Just carelessness on his part.

But hey, why let him off the hook?

He apologized sincerely two or three more times as I checked his deer and paperwork, but I kept up a facade of grim professionalism. Never acknowledged his apologies.

After he pulled out, I immediately got a wet wipe out and cleaned my face, neck and shirt, and the spit marks off my glasses.

I don't even remember his name or face, but I bet he'll be scared to ever pull into my station again.

And he won't be launching any lugies when he does.

I was surprised late in the morning to see one of the veterinary guys pull up. He was a regular visitor during deer seasons the last two years, stopping by to make sure we had all the CWD sampling gear we needed, and that we were pulling the right glands out of the deer's necks.

But we ain't pulling CWD samples this year. At least, not from this part of the state. My protests to continue to sample at least my border areas fell on deaf ears.

We're only sampling the north areas this year. And that's that.

But apparently, nobody bothered to tell the veterinary staff about that decision.

You'd think the professional wildlife disease people would at least be consulted, you know?

He did have one new tidbit. Our neighboring state to the south just found CWD in one of their moose. We knew it could be transferred in the lab, because we'd done that. But this was the first known case in the wild.

So, now we're supposed to pull samples from any of our moose that are harvested.

Would love to, but I don't have any of the 2005 sample kits. Not a one.

We're not supposed to be sampling here, remember?

A little after five I'm in the back of a pickup crawling over a spare tire and deer carcass to get a look at the deer's teeth, jammed up under the tool box. And I notice something familiar.

You're supposed to warn me about those, I chide, pointing at the middle of a rattlesnake tucked under the deer's neck.

I carefully maneuver the deer's head around, the teeth forgotten as I try to ascertain the deadness of this poisonous rattler. I've had supposedly dead rattlesnakes coil and strike at me in the back of hunters' trucks before.

Murphy's Law says the end you pull on will be the wrong end, and it is. I've got the tail. A good ten buttons on the rattle, but not broomed off. An adult snake, but no Ninebuttons.

But where's the head?

The hunters enjoy watching my careful search, not bothering to tell me the snake carcass is headless until I've found the bloody stump.

The young guy of the three announces "These two old farts? They didn't even hear it!" Apparently it had the misfortune of being camped right where they parked their rig, and they stepped out to its buzz.

The driver asks, "You want to teeth it?"

By the time dusk approaches, I've had about three sips of hot coffee. The rest of the three mugfulls being tepid or cold by the time I got them down. Did have time for a quick shot of the local pronghorn band, foraging near one of our typical western gates.

Through the course of the day, I checked several youngsters with their first ever deer kills, like this one.

The first hunter of the day eventually came out with his buck.

Turned out to be the largest buck of the weekend. Eight points each side, more than a 32" spread.

Yeah, if I saw that deer at the bottom of a canyon, I'd shoot him too.

And then worry about how I was going to get him out.

Couldn't have been too bad, though. He and his wife got it out in one piece.

Then I had a brief lull just before sunset. Which figures, I guess, since that's some of the best hunting time of the day. Managed to get a few shots of the setting sun.

Normally I would take this opportunity to pull down my signs and head for home before getting swamped by the rush of traffic after nightfall.

But not today.