“Too damn many deer!” I yelled as I regained control of my car and my fight-or-flight reflex after the 7 p.m. near miss. It happened two weeks ago on Maplevale Road, just after I turned off Route 36, still inside the Brookville borough limits.

A week or so earlier, friends Fred Wilbur and Jim Krause were left shaken in body and shrunken in finance after collisions with deer left their vehicles too damaged to be repaired at reasonable cost. Too many of us hit deer, I believe.

So on this past Saturday, I sat and shivered near our rural home, wearing orange and cradling a .30-06 rifle.

No, wait. I sat for a bit, but the effects of cold weather on my fingertips and of arthritis on my spine got me to get up and move around, relieving the stiffness.

Walking around does lessen my chances of shooting a deer, but it can increase the chances for my neighbor and friend as Chris Neil watches from within his deer stand. Saturday, I saw deer, eight in all, but none presented the chance at a shot that would be both safe and quickly fatal.

I only went out for an hour Sunday. Monday found me in the woods during the afternoon. I expect to hunt every day this week. I doubt that I will hunt all day on even one day.

If I shoot a deer, I won’t bring it home for longer than it takes to load it onto my pickup truck. The trip to the deer processor will be one-way this year. That is quite a contrast from 20 years ago when my wife would lean into the garage where my brother-in-law and I were cutting up a doe and proclaim, “Hurry up and bring me that other hindquarter to cut up! I am caught up to you slowpokes!”

In the intervening two decades, hunting has become more of a chore than an enjoyable pastime, clouded by concern over chronic wasting disease.

But the Pennsylvania Game Commission says that with proper precautions, deer meat is still safe to eat. It probably is.

Our freezers and canned goods shelves, however, are full enough. My wife loves to preserve beef, pork, chicken and, for all I know, zebras.

So this year, I will donate any venison to our local food pantry.

That is not noble.

It amounts to self-preservation.

I haven’t paid more than nodding attention to the Game Commission’s estimates of the statewide deer population since Gary Alt left his job as the state’s deer czar. It’s not that the Game Commission deliberately falsifies figures. I know too many people who have worked there to accept that damning insult to their integrity.

But “mission creep” is not a failing that resides within our armed forces alone. Having many deer entices hunters to buy licenses. Those license fees pay the salaries of the Game Commission deer-counters. Human nature does the rest. The Game Commission likes the overall size of the deer herd.

I don’t know, and really don’t care, whether the statewide totals are accurate.

I do know, and really do care, that my friends and neighbors are at increased risk of being hurt, killed and damaged financially by collisions with deer in our neck of the woods.

So, if my aim is steady and the deer are obliging (perhaps “dumb” would be more realistic), I will fill my tags, one buck and one doe.

The people who rely on the food pantry can use the meat. Those of us who drive on local roads can use a reduction in the likelihood of deer-auto collisions.

I actively dislike the killing part of hunting. I always have. As a teenager, I was squeamish to the point that my friends would dragoon me into shooting a squirrel as soon as that season started, so that I would get “it” out of the way. “It” was my reflex to upchuck as my knife slit the squirrel’s belly.

Oddly, once I had done that to the chortles of the savages with whom I hunted, I was able to shoot, kill, eviscerate and butcher a deer with no more squeamishness until the next year. I did outgrow that.

But to this day, I need to do mental gymnastics to steel myself to actually kill an animal. To me, that is good. Killing ought to be serious, whatever the reason.

I have never really talked about this with other hunters. I don’t know whether my dislike of killing is common, or whether it is just one more of my traits classified as weird.

I do other things that I dislike: Visit sick people; listen to overlong church sermons; allow fools to prattle on without correcting them.

Part of life and living involves doing things we dislike, out of necessity or Christian charity.

I enjoy hunting. I get satisfaction from being successful.

I take no joy in the actual killing. But as I said a while ago, “Too damn many deer!” Hunting is the only effective remedy.

Denny Bonavita is a former editor/publisher at newspapers in DuBois, Brookville, New Bethlehem and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: notniceman9@gmail.com