I have found dozens of dead buck racks over the years, some several years old and none have ever had any signs of being chewed on. Sheds on the other hand are a different story. I agree with Shadowace, the chewing is not a common in dead deer.

I believe, and please don't quote me on this, but when he found the deer he probably called a game warden. The game warden probably tagged the buck so the hunter can have legal ownership. I don't think you are supposed to have the rack off of a buck without a proper tag. If you get caught with one, the GW might ask you to take him out to the site at where you found it.

RiverBottom,

That would make sense regarding the tagging of the deer. Thanks for the input...and don't worry, I won't hold you to it if it's not 100% accurate...but you're probably correct.

nute and Shadowace, if you had read my post correctly, you would have seen that i didnt want to start some big war. I just said i could be wrong and its just my take on the situation and for not anyone to blow up about it. Every rack i've found dead, even ones just a month after season, have been chewed on. No, mice dont go for sheds more. I think they'll take whatever is there. Maybe they dont hit the carcass righta way because of the presence of coyotes and foxes, both of which eat them. But i think there is no thing a mouse has for a shed more than a skull/rack. the more and more i think, the more and more i think this story smells like BS.

slayer

Email from the hunter, Dan Perez Loggy Bayou Pro-Staffer,

Back in November I ran an arrow through the left lung of a buck I've been trying to kill for 3-years, trailed him for 400 yards and lost blood. I've since searched for him at least once every week. Believe it or not, I found him less than 60-yds from where I'd lost blood. I found him in a rip ( a drainage 60-yds long, 3-ft wide and 7-ft deep.) When fell in the rip he fell through quite a bit of brush that sprung back into place and obscured his presence. In fact we probably jumped over him at least 25 times searching for blood.

Last week when I found him, first I broke the whisper of wilderness with a long shrilling owl hoot, thanked God, called my son, called my wife and then called the conservation officer. The conservation officer met me in the woods the next morning and since my arrow was still imbedded in his ribs he gave me a regular season tag to put around his antler. He said that was a special tag that would allow me to enter this animal in the record books if chose. He said the critter has your arrow in him, he is still on your property and by the looks of the carcass you shot him during the season. Open and shut case.

Never stop looking
Dan

They say the buck cannot be entered into P&Y because of the time between shooting and recovering and because he didn't quit hunting after he lost it. Check out the thread on AT:
http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showth...ght=huge+point

Would this be typical or non-typical? Since its got that kicker, it would be non, right?

Dairy King, it would probably be scored as a typical, and a deduction given to the kicker. That's the easiest way to do it. My main-frame five-by-five with split brow tines was scored that way a couple years ago: The smaller "split" on each eyeguard was deducted from the total gross score of 162 1/8", leaving him with a net of 156 1/8" -- but other than that he was a typical and scored as such.

I'm going to have to agree with one of ShadowAce's earlier posts. I go to college in Champaign and we experienced a VERY mild winter this past year as did most of central Illinois. My home town (a little over 2 hours south of Cham-bana) had a some-what mild winter too. Based on one of my earlier posts about the dead deer/rack I found...I could believe that Dan found that deer legitamately (sp?) with all the hair on the skull plate. Maybe I'm wrong but it's possible we'll find out soon enough in one of the deer mags being published! Haha!

ShawdowAce, Thanks for the post. Fair enough. Unbelievable deer and good to see that it was recovered.

could this animal have died from an infection that manifested itself AFTER the shot, and died as a result in relatively close proximity to the shooting? it's possible.