Winter's Meat
 

Took this crazy horned mule deer buck in North TX last week. He had a normal 3 point antler with a brow tine on the left side but the right side had a weird droopy antler with 4 little points on it. The husband of a lady that teaches at the same school I do has been watching him on their place for 2 years and he was crazy last year too. He wanted him taken but didn't want to use his own tag since he is watching a big 4x4. Since I hunt meat I jumped all over it. When I rolled him over to field dress him I found that he had an old healed gunshot wound to the rear left ankle. It was swelled up about the size of a baseball. That might explain the crazy antler since an injury on one side of deer often affects antler growth on the opposite side.



A single shot at about 80 yards with my 9.3x62 Mauser did the trick. This is the 95th deer I have taken on license.

Cheers Y'all

Cool story and nice buck.

I like hunting those "ugly bucks" that nobody else wants. I'm a meat hunter so the ugly bucks are the good ones for me to put the buck tag on.

Nice job!

-Jake

He'll be good eating Flags. And you're right. An injury on one side affects antler growth on the opposite side. Crazy!!

Good going flags. I hope to stock my freezer this next week during Vt's Ml season. Couldn't find a legal buck during our 2 week rifle season which closed Sunday. Saw a lot of deer and 5 spikes along with another buck I couldn't identify so tag soup is now being eaten.. Got both a buck and doe tag for the Ml season.

What's legal for you CI? We're 3 points on a side where I am in PA. Ohio is 3" antler or longer is a buck. But tags are all either sex. Only 1 buck allowed each season

-Jake

We are on something like the 12th year of a 5 year management plan where they save the spikes. All legal bucks need at least 2 points on one side which is totally ridiculous. It accomplishes nothing to save the spikes as shown by many other states that tried that around 15 years ago and then rescinded it. Vermont was late to the party when all that started and well after most states did away from that thinking Vermont is still sitting on the fence. The reality is it probably degrades the gene pool if anything. Antler restrictions if used should be similar to what you have in PA. We have a very high rate of legal bucks being yearlings and saving the spikes just removes all the yearling 3 to 8 point that have some better antler genetics. I don't care anything for antlers and would be happy to take a spike or doe for the freezer. Perhaps in a year or two the biologists will change the plan and open them up again.