Man, some guys just have all the luck!
The following Pictorial was sent to me by a friend of Rick’s – a local bowhunter. Those of you who appreciate white-tailed deer and love shed antler hunting (like me) will get a real kick out of it!
The story even prompted me to do a little shed hunting myself; last Friday before the snow arrived. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite as lucky as Rick’s friend!
In Canada, mature whitetail deer generally shed their antlers during December and January. One is fortunate to find a shed antler and even more so to find a pair from the same deer. The whitetail deer shown here is a mature whitetail, possibly 4.5 years old. This picture was taken by a trail camera January 06, 2011 at 3:13 am. The camera time was not set back for daylight savings time, so any pictures shown here will be ahead by an hour.
This is a nice mature whitetail that made it through another hunting season. He’s now taking advantage of some alfalfa I placed in an area where I suspected some buck activity. Another mature buck also was interested in the free meal. Several younger bucks were waiting in line for a mouthful of hay.
These two deer decided to spar; testing their strength as often males do. I’ve included only a couple of pictures of the sparring that took place.
And when they seperated and parted ways, the larger deer left with only one antler intact.(Lefthand side of photo)
A short while later, a newly transformed single-antlered buck appears!
If you look closely, you can actually see the fallen antler on the ground in the middle of each picture. I went to the feeding area a couple of days later and found the shed. As I viewed my pictures, I noticed a deer without any antlers but clearly a buck as you can see.
This is a good size buck; just no antlers. Could it be the same one? I suspected as much. Where’s the other shed then? Could be anywhere!
I went back to pick up my camera and recharge the batteries. There, not a yard from where I found the first antler, the other one was lying! I was elated and yet puzzled by how this deer could have dropped the other antler so close to where he lost the first one.
The two sheds are definitely from the same deer. With a standard 18 inch spread, this deer will score close to 150 inches. I’ll get my friend Rick to score them properly but it’ll be close.
If this guy makes it through the winter, what will he look like next year?
(A special thanks to Rick’s friend for the great buck Pictorial)