If you say he was limping then it is probably injury related.

On our farm we have a bad gene that we are trying to get out where some of our bucks are killer on one side then either have one spike on the other or some kind of fork. We have been culling these bucks during shotgun seasonsover the last 5 or 6 years and have got 4 that I can remember. Only one left that we know of this year.