I’m not sure what exactly got into this buck to make him think that he wanted to take on this massive bull (probably the rut), but something happened between the two and led to them locking antlers and horns.
The bull seems to just be minding its business in its fenced-in field when the deer jumped the wire and made its way over to the behemoth. To me, it looks like the bull is just standing there staring at the buck as if to say:
“Are you really sure you want to do this?”
And the buck apparently was pretty sure, because it walks right over to the bull and gets up in its personal space. The bull stands tall and strong, as it normally does, and almost seemed to welcome the deer’s advances. As the buck sideways-walks over to the bull, it suddenly lowers its antlers, and the fight is on.
Impressively, the deer actually manages to back up the bull a bit, though it looks like the big beast did most of the “backing up” on its own. I think even the buck somewhat surprised itself, because after the initial locking of antlers and horns, they both ceased fighting and looked at one other.
However, they quickly get back to it, trading heavy blows, with neither making much headway in the fight. It appears that the bull doesn’t even want to battle in the first place, which is fortunate for the deer, because if the bull really wanted to, it could make pretty short work of the buck.
About halfway through the standoff, we finally get to see the bull showcase some of its power and scare away the deer.
The buck retreats for a moment, but quickly sizes back up the bull and tries one last attack. It even fights a little “dirty” and goes for the low-blow on the back of the bull, which the beast does not appreciate at all.
After the cheap shot, it’s actually the bull who says “enough with this” and runs away from the fight. I wouldn’t say the buck won the battle, since the fighting never even really got started on the bull’s end.
I firmly believe that the massive bull, who had the deer outweighed by at least 1,000 pounds, could have obliterated the attacking buck if it wanted to.
Why it didn’t is unclear, but it must have been feeling pretty nice to let the deer walk that day.
Take a look:
