It's that time of year again...

Cut throat season.

Literally.

Deer seasons north of town opened today, which meant it was time to start cutting deer throats and extracting their retropharyngeal lymph nodes for testing for chronic wasting disease. Had one of our fish guys volunteer to come down and spend the entire weekend on check station with me to help with the sample extractions.

Even though I warned the boss I was here for the opening three days last year, and only checked 33 deer from our areas. (It's a major highway, so get lots of critters from elsewhere in the state. Usually in a fully processed and packaged condition, so there's no more data to collect than you could get off meat in a supermarket.)

I warned boss and the volunteer it could be really slow. To bring a good book.

Set up on the highway at 08:24.

First hunter didn't come out until 10:08. And yeah, I checked to make sure this was opening day.

The first deer from any of our areas didn't show up until 13:29.

That's five hours without any real data. Without bloodying a single scalpel.

And then, since this was such a nice buck, the hunter naturally didn't want us cutting its throat, and ruining the cape.

So, still no samples.

Wife came out to rescue the heeler sisters around three o'clock. And all of a sudden, we had two trucks with deer pull in from two different directions. And then a third truck, again with a deer. All available for cutting, none traveling together.

If that ain't the way check station work always is.

Wife left when we finally got caught up.

And we didn't get another sample all day.

So, we called the boss. And he agreed. Sitting around all day for just three samples probably wasn't worth the volunteer's time, and the gas for the 250 mile round trip. He won't be back tomorrow.

So, naturally, I'll be busier than can be, and the hunters with deer will all show up at the same time.

Around 10:30, a patrolcar went zipping by from town, lights and sirens blazing, like a bat out of hell. Followed by a sheriff's office unit, in similar fashion. Followed by an ambulance, again with lights and siren. Followed by the fire department extraction truck, with lights and siren.

Finally followed by yet another ambulance.

No lights. No siren.

Sobering.

And, finally, the sedately driving tow truck.

Traffic into town had dried up, and finally resumed around 11 o'clock. Figuring the accident had stopped traffic, which would have started again after the Patrol arrived, I guessed about 15 miles out. The steepest hill on the highway, on a curve to boot.

I was right.

One of the ambulances came back to town just as fast, in full warning mode. Alarming, but probably better than being in the second ambulance.

I suspect it is no coincidence that the Flight for Life helicopter came by shortly thereafter, on a direct line from Central City to our community hospital.

An arrival that means only one thing... a medical emergency that our hospital is not equipped to handle.

Frightening, indeed.

But still... probably better than the ride in the second ambulance.

A mother and daughter came out with the daughter's first elk. An impressive six-point bull.

As I pointed out, she screwed up. You're supposed to make your first of any animal be small, so it's easier to improve each year. Starting like this, where can you go?

But they were most impressed with the bull's left antler. It was off center from where it should be on the skull.

Not as rare an oddity as you might think. Probably see one every year or so. Although, usually the offset antler is malformed in some way, and this one wasn't.

So, how weird was it that another six-point should come out later the same day, in a warden's truck, with the same deformity? And again with an otherwise perfectly normal antler?

My aide for the day left shortly after moonrise, for his long drive home.

Me, I stuck it out another half hour or so, checking a couple deer in the rush of vehicles after dusk.

And watching the last rays of the sun touch the clouds to the east.