I SAW THIS AND THOUGHT YALL MIGHT LIKE IT,, KINDA WEIRD,, ITS CRAZY. IVE NEVER HEARD OF IT..
The Eight Point...Doe?
Anthony Graper


Hi my name is Anthony Graper I'm 14 years old and I am from Kalona, Iowa. I read the article about the 12 point doe on your TeamBRAG website and I just had to write you about another "doe". This past hunting season I encountered the weirdest thing and now I know I'm not the only one.

The morning of December 1st 2001 was Iowa's opener of 1st season shotgun season and I was excited like I always was every year. I was hoping to shoot a nice nine point buck that I have been seeing during the bow season for the past couple weeks.

Once I got to my treestand I sat in the dark for a while. I saw a lot of small bucks and some does go right under my stand not 4 yards from it. After about two hours of sitting I heard some noise behind me to my left. And when I glassed the area I saw a real monster buck. He was about 150-200 yards out which was well out of shotgun range. All I could do was hope that he would come closer. But all the deer did was parallel me. I just looked at his thick main beams and blade tip points and I got buck fever soooo bad that I about fell out of the tree. I was shaking so bad that I scared a doe that was about 15 yards out to my left. At about 1:00 p.m. I hadn't seen anything for about the past two hours so I went up to my house with my ATV to get a bite to eat.

When I went up to the house I saw that my father,Lawrence Graper, was already done hunting and so was my brother in law Gabe. My father took a nice 8-point and Gabe took his first buck which was a nice 4-point.

The other members of my group were still hunting so I decided to go to a stand that was about 100 yards from the stand that I was in that morning. This was the same stand that I hunted in during bow season. It was where I had seen the nice nine point buck and watched him bed not too far from the stand.

I waited for about 3 more hours. It was almost 4:30 and I had been watching a doe for a while. She was tempting but I didn't shoot her because I had said that I wasn't shooting any does this season.

A couple minutes later I heard a loud crack and it sounded like a herd of buffalo coming towards me. As I looked I raised my gun just in case. I whistled to stop them and as I looked all I saw was a couple of does. As I lowered my gun they bolted. But suddenly I heard more noise and looked to the left and saw a nice 8-point that I couldn't pass up. So I drew up before he got there and when he approached I whistled again. I fired once at 18 yards and dropped what I thought was a really nice buck. When I went to go look at it I thought, "Man this is my best buck yet". I was wrong!

When Clarence and I got back to the house they asked me who shot the buck and I said it was me. No one believed me though because me and Clarence pulled a trick on them last year. I told them I had shot a monster buck that Clarence had really killed. It didn't work because my sister spilled the beans. So now no one believed that I had shot this buck.

But then Clarence said, "No, no can't you guys tell that it is way too small for me to shoot?" I told him that he was very funny and should be a comedian. Then they all believed me. I ran inside to get a shower so I could go to town later and my father and Gabe were going to field dress the deer. Just as I hopped in the shower my other brother in law Toby said, "Anthony Lawrence Graper get your butt out here right now!"

I was scared but when I got out to the garage they all looked at me smiling and Gabe said, "I thought that you weren't shooting a doe this year." And I said no I wasn't and didn't. Then my father said, "Look at the deer and tell me what you see."

I said, "An 8-point buck. Why?"

He said, "Look again, real close."

I looked it over and noticed that it was really skinny and I said that it kind of looked like a doe. Then I bent down to take a closer look and saw that, in fact, it was an 8-point doe!

So we called the local DNR and they said that it was the first in 15 years and that it only happened about 1 in 100,000 deer or so. They also said that it was in it's genes and it had messed up hormones.

A week later I was in two big city papers and a guy called and said that in the 1960's he shot a 7-point doe and wanted to look at the rack. Maybe there should be a record book for these weird deer.

-Anthony Graper-

Ed Note - Thanks for a really interesting letter, Anthony. I thought it would be fun to share it with all our readers. Is there anyone else out there with an antlered doe story?



ALSO THIS ISSUE...

Editor's Signpost

The Eight Point...Doe?

Basic Turkey Guide

Mystery Photo

The Alabama Fly Fisher

The Brown Bombers Are Coming


HERES THE LINK ALSOhttp://www.teambrag.com/issue.mv?mon...pe=Feature%202

In the 80s, a neighboring huntclub had a doe killed that was about that same size. The guys said that this deer did not drop its horns. Does anyone know about that? Do they just keep growning to a certain point and then stop?

A lady here in Arizona took an antlered doe this year. Can't remember how big the rack was though.

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NEVER SEEN ONE IN REAL LIFE, BUT HAVE HEARD STORIES OF THEM

It is a very rare occasion, but usually someone in NA will shoot an antlered doe. Just for you r nformation: If a doe's antlers have no velvet on, they cannot be bred. If they do hav velvet into the winter seasons they are fertile and can be bred and have fawns. kinda cool if you ask me.

Grey Fantom's Boonie Webpage http://www.angelfire.com/ab7/bookbucks

I read somewhere that it is not incredibly rare for a doe to possess hermaphordite organs. It would be neat to shoot one.

"Playing under the table and dreaming"