Newburgh 12-year-old gets his deer, passes hunting lesson

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For many, Thanksgiving evokes thoughts of well-planned, time-honored traditions.

In many households, tradition holds that everyone must eat as much as possible, then retire to the living room for a bit of football-watching and a (seemingly) well-deserved nap.

In others, it means that everyone grabs a gun, tosses on their blaze orange, and heads to the woods for a morning of deer hunting.

If you’re among the latter group, and if you’re lucky, as Newburgh’s Fritz Eyerer can tell you, one thing is certain: You’re going to earn your Thanksgiving feast.

Eyerer, a 12-year-old seventh-grader at Reeds Brook Middle School in Hampden, has been hunting for three years … ever since he turned 10 and became eligible to accompany his father into the woods with a gun of his own.

He has seen plenty of deer, but never successfully shot one.

Until Thanksgiving morning, that is.

The Eyerer hunting party – Fritz, dad George, and friend Forrest Procter – were hunting on family land in Newburgh.

And after spending a couple hours waiting for something to happen, Fritz got his chance.

“I was in a sit-stand, in the woods, [watching a dirt] road,” Fritz Eyerer said via cell phone on Monday afternoon, as his mother drove him to his piano lesson.

“[The deer] came out on the road a long ways away,” Fritz Eyerer said. “It was crossing the road and it paused. I pulled my gun up and a little one went by it. And when it passed, I shot.”

The single 100-yard shot from his .243 rifle paid off, and he and Procter found the deer about 75 feet from where it had been struck.

Fritz’s first deer was a doe that field-dressed at 85 pounds, the Eyerers report.

Then it was time to teach Fritz Eyerer a lesson.

Included in the pictures that his mom dropped by this newspaper on Monday was one of Fritz, harnessed to his deer, dragging the doe back home.

All the way back home. By himself. No ATV. No truck. Plain old Fritz-power.

“I knew I was going to have to do something like that,” Fritz Eyerer said of the half-mile trudge. “It was pretty hard toward the end.”

Fritz explained that his dad and Procter wanted to turn the event into a learning experience.

Sure, the grown-ups could have done the heavy lifting. Sure, they could have given the 12-year-old a break.

But Fritz said that wouldn’t have been the same.

“They wanted me to learn how hard it would be, if I ever shot another deer,” Fritz said.

After returning home, Fritz said he was pretty pleased with himself.

And despite the temptation to curl up on the couch, and recover from his experience as a human deer-skidder, he didn’t do that.

“I didn’t [take a nap],” Fritz said. “But I was really tired.”

And when dinner time came around, you can bet there weren’t many 12-year-olds who’d worked up a bigger appetite.

At this time of year, most of us find a bit more time to appreciate the gifts we’ve been blessed with … and the gifts we can pass along to others.

Even if the others aren’t even human.

Just ask Ron Kelley, who checked in via e-mail from Princeton this week.

Kelley’s son-in-law, Brad Richard, is a game warden who covers the Princeton and Grand Lake Stream areas. When Richard called his wife, Kristina, on Thanksgiving day, he told her that he had to respond to the report of a deer that had plunged through the ice on Musquash Stream.

Kelley tagged along, figuring he’d take some pictures of the rescue … if there was one.

“Upon arrival, we found the deer lying on the ice,” Kelley wrote. “It had been there almost all day.”

The three men – Scott Monk also joined Richard – unloaded the canoe and dragged it to a spot close to the deer.

“To our surprise, the deer managed to get up and start walking,” Kelley wrote. “She immediately fell through the ice, but was able to swim into some open water. She then swam to the far shore.”

Kelley said the deer rested for a bit, then headed across a nearby bog and into the woods.

While the warden and his entourage never actually touched the deer, their presence provided the impetus the deer needed to move to safety.

Kelley said the trip into the woods turned out perfectly.

“At last sighting, she seemed to be doing well,” Kelley wrote. “What a great feeling to see her out of the water. It is a Thanksgiving we will always remember.”

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.