This wild story out of Europe is the sort of thing that you'll be stretched to believe, but makes for a good reminder.
According to police in the Czech Republic, a hunter witnessed an exceptionally odd encounter with an antlered red deer.
While on a hunt in the Horní Planá forest administration district, the "older hunter" was with several others as well as a hunting dog as they moved through the woods. At one point the dog startled a deer, which began charging straight for the man. Slung over his shoulder was a .22 Hornet repeating rifle, and as the deer ran past, it tore the man's jacket sleeve.
The rifle, luckily unloaded, inadvertently slipped from the hunter's possession onto the deer's antler before it darted away. The hunters searched the forest, with one spotting the deer about a mile away, but they were unable to recover the gun.
A translated portion near the end of the story goes like this:
If anyone finds the weapon, they are obliged to hand it over to the nearest police department. Or report the finding to line 158.
Needless to say, this is one of those outdoor encounters you'd only expect to hear about once. Luckily no one was hurt, and besides a serious annoyance, the deer will likely be okay. One hunter is out a rifle, and that's probably the biggest overall outcome.
The hunter was forced to declare the weapon missing under the Czech Republic's Firearms and Ammunition Act.
As hunters, we always hope to have encounters with wildlife, just not like this! Always make sure your firearms are secured, and especially unloaded when you're not actively using them.
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