Catch of the day: lobster fisherman rescues deer

Gunning Cove lobster fisherman Sterling Goulden ended the day on the fishing grounds on Jan. 9 with quite the catch-and-release mission.

The drama began to unfold that morning when his wife

Margo happened to look out the window of their home and saw a deer struggling in the water to get ashore. She called the Department of Lands and Forestry, then neighbours Dave Syer and Arnold Townsend.

“They came down with a little boat but couldn’t do nothing,” because of the ice,” said Goulden. “Then she called me. I was on my way in from lobstering.”

It took Goulden about 20 minutes to get in. By that time the deer had reached the breakwater rocks, but he said, “She couldn’t get up over that.”

At first Goulden tried breaking the ice, thinking he could re-route her back to shore.

“But no sir, she was going one way. That’s the way she was going,” he said. “When she hit the rock wall, that was it. She had nowhere else to go.

“I pretty well run the boat ashore to get her. I leaned out over the stern to get the rope around her neck. When I got the rope around her neck, she came alive and got her hind leg up and under the rope and took it off. So, I tried again,” he explained.

“Next time I got her around the neck and the front leg went in the loop too and aboard she came.”

Goulden used his lobster trap hauler to hoist the deer aboard.

“That was the only way I knew to get it aboard,” he said, adding although it wasn’t a big deer, it was heavy.

“There was no way I could have got her in without the hauler. There was no way,” he said, estimating it probably only took 30 seconds from the time he lassoed it to getting it aboard.

“When I hauled it in over the side of the boat it was pretty well ... I said, ‘If you die you die, but I will take my chances and try to save you.’ When she hit the floor she quivered a little bit. I imagine she’s got a sore neck.”

Once aboard it was only about a 30-second steam to Goulden’s wharf.

“I made my way over to my wharf and tied the boat up. Arnold’s wife brought some blankets down and we made a little tent,” said Goulden. “I had an electric heater aboard the boat that I plug in at nighttime, so I plugged that in underneath the