Call it hunter’s intuition, but John Lien had a good feeling about the day’s bow-hunting prospects when he set out for his tree stand in late September southwest of Park River, N.D.

His optimism wasn’t unfounded; the spot has produced nice bucks, both for Lien and a buddy who owns the land.

But never in his wildest imagination, Lien says, could he have envisioned the sight that greeted him when he walked up to the tree supporting his stand.

There, in a small creek about 10 yards from the base of the tree, lay what appeared to be a buck with a huge nontypical rack and completely covered with mud.

At first glance, Lien thought the buck had fallen into the water and drowned. The shallow water flowing through that stretch of the creek had been churned into a black, mucky froth, a sure sign that some kind of struggle had occurred.

A closer look revealed something much more striking: Two bucks, horns locked together in combat, lay in the mud – the smaller deer already dead, a twitching ear the only sign that the other still was clinging to life.

The bigger buck had a 5×4 rack, Lien says, the smaller a 5×5.

“I could see they had been in there for days,” he said. “They were both black from head to toe.”

Creeping toward the creek, Lien says his first instinct was to reach for his camera, but the buck that still was alive saw him and started thrashing in the mire.

Lien drew back and shot, putting an arrow through the buck’s lungs and killing the struggling animal within seconds. His bow-hunting season was finished, barely 15 minutes after it started and before he’d even had a chance to climb into his stand.

“It was kind of a mercy killing,” said Lien, 33, a construction manager for a Fargo development company.

“It was really a depressing scene to see how they were. They were completely black, and they’d chewed up the little creek. It was pretty disheartening.”

At the same time, though, Lien had just encountered something few hunters ever experience. If the struggle had occurred 50 yards in either direction from his stand, Lien says he probably wouldn’t have seen the bucks.

“I just stood there in shock,” he said. “Surreal is the word I like to use. You hear about it, and you see pictures, but to have it be right in front of you 10 yards away, and to be in the condition they were in with the muck and the mud. I can’t imagine.”

Lien says he had mixed feelings about posing with the deer while holding his bow. Still, he chose to do so in the end.

“I don’t mean to act like it was some great hunt, but I was bow hunting, and I did kill one,” he said. “It’s just what hunters do – they take pictures.”