An 11-point buck stolen away

Fri, Jan 9, 2009    to del.icio.us

There are moments during a hunt where every aspect of the adventure comes together in one glorious moment, the type of occurrence that reinforces our love of the sport.

Then there are times when something so troubling takes place, it shakes our faith in the sport and in those who we dare to call sportsmen.

Grand Haven's Larry Ruiter went through both the ultimate high and the excruciating low of the hunt in one morning this past November.

Ruiter, who spends most of his time hunting whitetails around his cabin near Lake City, was convinced by a friend from church to take a trip out to Wyoming this fall. Ruiter's friend, Craig Johnson, used to live in Wyoming and had permission to hunt a beautiful chunk of private land owned by a sugar beet factory in the flatlands just west of the Rockies, about 30 miles east of Cody.

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The morning started out rather hectic for Ruiter. He and Johnson were a few minutes late getting into the woods, so it was starting to get light as Ruiter was making his way to his spot, about 300 yards from where they had parked the truck. First, a shell jammed in his rifle. After getting that situation straightened out, he forgot his pack at the truck.

Instead of making another trip back to his vehicle, Ruiter just sat down and began to review what Johnson had drilled into his head during their 1,400-mile drive from Grand Haven.

"Craig said, 'Don't you dare shoot the first buck you see,'" Ruiter said. "He said, 'I know you're used to Michigan.' Right away, two deer came out, and they were both nice bucks. One had a nice drop tine, and I'm thinking, 'I'm supposed to let these go?'"

But Ruiter did just that, and he was rewarded an hour later when, at 10 a.m., an even bigger buck wandered within 40 yards of his blind. One shot later and the buck, an exceptionally tall 11-pointer, was lying dead at his feet.

"It was 300 yards from the car, and it was too big to pull it back, so I walked back to the car," Ruiter said. "Craig had said he'd meet me there at 11. He didn't show up until a little after that. We went back to get the deer, and it was gone."

Johnson and Ruiter were the only two who had permission to hunt the property, so they were shocked to find the deer missing. Marks on the ground made it obvious that someone had dragged the buck off into the woods.

"We found drag marks and went through to this little swampy area," Ruiter said. "And there's the deer, gutted out and sitting on this ATV."

Four guys surrounded the deer, including one man who claimed that he had shot the deer earlier in the morning and had tracked it to the current location.

"The guy says, 'I shot this deer,' and I said, 'That's the first thing a thief does is lie,'" Ruiter said. "He started to argue, and I said, 'You know for a fact you didn't shoot this deer.'

"The bottom line is, he wouldn't take it off the ATV."

Ruiter knew that things could get ugly if he persisted, and with no means of contacting a law enforcement member, he did the only thing he could think of to take something positive out of the situation.

"I said, 'At least let me take a picture,' so I got my picture taken with it," Ruiter said. "That was it. We just didn't know how else to handle it. Not every story ends with a happy ending. It took the whole joy out of the trip."

Ruiter said that had he been out hunting with a different group, he may have handled the situation differently, but hunting with a friend from Grace Fellowship Church, he realized he had an obligation to act in a manner befitting his position.

"I felt like I had my pastor and the whole congregation standing behind me," Ruiter said. "If I was up there with one of my boys, I probably would have gotten between the guy and the deer and told my boy to take that deer off there and see what happened.

"Craig said he recognized one of the guys who was there, a local taxidermist. He was off clearing brush for the ATV. He said, 'I know that guy. He's trouble. He's been trying to get on this land for years.'"

Ruiter ended up shooting another deer, a small eight-point, later in the trip, and has also had a fantastic season here in Michigan, killing a doe with his bow, then two bucks, including a big eight-point, during gun season.

He's had two months to run the situation over in his head a thousand times, and Ruiter has gone through countless different things he could have done differently if he had it all to do again.

"I guess the thing I should have done is gut it immediately instead of walking back, then pull it 50 feet, set my stuff down and keep working at it to get it within sight of the car," he said.

With the temperature over 70 degrees, however, Ruiter decided to wait for help.

"The other thing I could have done was get Craig out of his tree earlier, but then I might be running deer off of him," Ruiter said.

Ruiter was so upset about the entire situation, he hasn't shared his story with anyone.

"I haven't talked about it. I was too upset to even mention it, the way it went down," Ruiter said. "Craig told a few people at church, and they've told me I handled myself well. I didn't start kicking and screaming and cussing. I held testimony."

Losing the buck certainly shook Ruiter's confidence in his fellow hunters.

"Just to know you're sharing the woods with hunters who would do that. ... How can that guy tell the story when everything he said was a lie? It's like finding a road kill deer. He stole it," Ruiter said. "I still love going up to my place in Lake City. It hasn't soured me on hunting. It just shows me that you don't trust people. There are a lot of very ethical hunters out there, but then some aren't. It made me a lot more cautions and less trusting.

"It's just one more life experience."