We hear it all the time, chronic wasting disease, CWD, is spreading and it’s being detected in more and more places. The inevitable is probably going to happen and it will be everywhere in the future but there’s no reason to hurry up its spread. Now that deer season is here there are a few things we as hunters can do to help slow the spread.

  Properly disposing of the deer carcass can help slow the spread. Carcasses or parts thereof of infected deer can expose other deer to the disease. The prions that cause CWD can remain behind long after the carcass decomposes and the soil around that area can infect other deer for months possibly years later. Since there’s no easy way to tell if your deer is infected, you should treat every one of them like they are.

  So to help slow or avoid exposure risk, here are a few suggestions to implement this year at your camp.

  * Place your remains in trash bags and put it in your regular trash collection or take to a permitted landfill.

 * Not getting home for a while? The best thing to do is bury the remains at or near where you harvested it. Be sure to bury it deep enough that dogs, coyotes and other scavengers can’t dig it up easy.

  * Don’t have a shovel or the ground is frozen? Leave the remains on site as a last resort. This won’t prevent the nearby scattering of infected parts by scavengers but if CWD is present in the area the infected parts will remain in the general area and keep the disease from moving too far. Don’t leave them in fields, food plots and other areas where deer are feeding or where rain runoff can wash them into such places.

  * Never ever dump any carcasses deer or otherwise in any body of water. This is illegal and you could face a hefty fine if caught. Besides, we need to keep our waterways clean.

  * A good rule to remember is never transport any part of the spine or brain away from the area where your deer was taken. CWD tends to live in those areas of the body so leave them behind.

 * If you think that burning the remains will work, it won’t. Only commercial incinerators reaching over 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit can generate enough heat long enough to destroy the prions that cause CWD.

  * And lastly. Most states now have rules governing the importation of animals from other states so keep that in mind if you live in a different state from you where hunt. Check with your state’s DNR to see the rules where you live before bringing that trophy elk home from Wyoming. Find links to your state’s DNR site at http://www.backwoodsbound.com/stgamedepts.html.

  It is hard to believe this happened twenty-something years ago, but I have always enjoyed taking new hunters out. My brother Jeff was 14 then and he had never killed a deer. I had never killed a big buck, though I had shot a few younger deer. I took my first deer when I was 19 years old. She was a doe that I shot 225 yards away with my grandpa watching telling me “to shoot the little one ‘cause it would eat better”. It was good eating and the .243 Winchester did the trick, even at that distance.

  I had to wait for Jeff to play a basketball game the Friday night before season opened so we left late, getting to deer camp with my dad, uncle and cousin’s husband Doug already in bed.

  Jeff and I got up the next morning and walked down the mountain away from the camp. We hunted the Ouachita National Forest around Walnut Mountain, crossing Pigeon Creek as we ventured deep into the forest range to our yearly hunting area. It is very close to the Arkansas border with Mena, Arkansas being the largest nearby town from where we camped.

  Neither Jeff nor I saw anything we could shoot and back in those days you had to draw a doe tag. Neither of us had one so we were buck hunting, though I was in no hurry because my friend Todd was meeting us Sunday evening and we were going to spend the rest of the week hunting at my father-in-law’s land.

  No one had seen anything of significance and since my Dad and Uncle Royce were big on breakfast they came back and cooked up a humdinger. We were low on cooking fuel and Doug wanted to pick up some things in town so Jeff and I rode with him. Well, we got to sight-seeing and driving the roads and it was late when we returned (Okay, we did stop for a triple decker burger at Anderson’s in Smithville).

 When we arrived at camp, Royce was dressing a really nice 7 point buck. He said the deer started moving like crazy around 2 o’clock and he killed that one around 2:30. He said Dad was sitting in his stand now. Since it was getting dark, Jeff and I drove down to pick him up.

  We stood beside the pick-up talking in low whispers when the woods roared once from the sound of Dad’s .30-30, the echo rumbling up and down the canyons like ocean breakers. We looked at each other and then climbed the mountain up to where Dad was sitting. He was standing over a beautiful 11 point mature buck that he had shot right between the eyes at 10 yards. He told us how a bunch of does had been eating acorns around him all evening and then this big guy came up the hill and joined the party. He said he shot him between the eyes because he had stayed behind some brush and never would turn broadside and it was almost too dark to shoot.

  We helped him drag it out and field dress it. We hung the deer and walked into camp to find Doug and Uncle Royce finishing up the evening meal and getting ready to ladle it into plates. We were all eating excitedly when Jeff said if no one cared, he would like to hunt that stand in the morning. I told him two deer had already been killed out of it. He didn’t care. Uncle Royce and Dad did not mind if Jeff hunted it neither. I should say now that Jeff is my half-brother and belongs to my mom and step-dad. However, my dad had no problems with me bringing Jeff along with me.

 The next morning before daylight I put Jeff in the stand and I headed down the hill to where my dad’s old stand used to be before it fell over. I found a good place and sat down, comfortable in my new heavy Winchester coat. I had been there about 30 minutes when a doe came running past me and hot behind her was a nice buck with his nose to the ground. I flipped the .243 to my shoulder and then lowered it knowing that the deer trail went straight to where Jeff was sitting.

 Twenty minutes later I was cussing myself for not shooting at the buck. He had been a nice one and I should’ve….

 The shot from Jeff’s stand sounded like it was in my lap. I sat there for a full minute when he fired 4 more times, each shot sounding evenly spaced. I fired a round from my pistol as though answering him and headed up the mountain. When I got to Jeff’s stand I did not see him. I walked around in front of it when I heard a faint “David” and I looked up in the tall stand. Jeff was still there.

  I asked, “What the hell are you doing?”

 “Dave I shot a big buck!” he said, his eyes still big.

  Looking around and seeing nothing, I said, “Where is it?”

 Jeff related to me that the buck had followed the doe up in front of him and finally presented him with a good shot. Jeff being a very good shot (he really is) decided to shoot the buck through the neck. He said he missed and it ran around him in a circle before it stopped and he shot it through the neck, knocking it off its feet. The buck thrashed, then jumped and ran off. Jeff shot three more times at it, though I never heard a lull in the shooting myself.

 I could not find blood so I told him he missed. In Oklahoma, under great stress, younger brothers will sometimes cuss an older brother. This was one of those times. So to mollify him I struck out in the direction he last saw the deer, making big circles looking for blood. I found a place that looked like four animals had bled out, a thick trail leading from it.

 I said, “Sorry Jeff, you hammered him.”

 Jeff freaked about losing the deer and I told him with this blood trail he probably would not lose him. We tracked it back to the road. Looking down into the steep canyon below us, we saw Dad and Uncle Royce heading out. I told Jeff to stay up there and I would track the deer and tell them what happened. So down the canyon I went for about 300 feet. The deer had turned to the left and twice I found where it fell. I was moving slow, taking a step and looking around when in the distance I seen an ear flicker. Lifting the scope I could see the deer sitting on his haunches, looking around. I settled the crosshairs between his shoulder blades and popped him. He tumbled over and was finished kicking when I got there. Calling out, my dad and Jeff answered and I called for them to help.

 The buck was 8 points in perfect symmetry and had a 14 ¾ inch inside spread. We took turns dragging it back up the hill, Jeff taking his turn every time it was his turn. He didn’t shirk any duties. When we got it to the truck and put the deer on the tailgate the big grin on the 14 year old face shone brighter than the sun.

 He said, “I was afraid I lost him.”

 Ruffling his hair, I said, “Nah, not with this much blood.”

 We dressed the deer and packed him in ice as we broke camp to go home. Three nice bucks all out of the same stand in less than 24 hours. Jeff has that deer mount in his room now, the best deer he has taken to date, though he has killed a few bucks here and there. He was the first teenager I took hunting with me. Since then, I have been there when my daughter and my niece took their first deer. It is a trophy of a different sort and one that is probably more important than the trophies I have taken myself.

  We don’t hunt that area in Oklahoma anymore and there is a new National Park walking trail right through the area where we harvested those bucks back then. Times change and that is why it is important to take your niece, nephew, little brother or little sister hunting with you. Let’s keep our sport alive.