Pepper,

Nice buck, thanks for the pictures and the story

What a buck!

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This past week we had four feet of snow in forty eight hours in the high country. The packers got stuck, the guides and hunters got stuck, the ranch shut down our high country camp after plowing drifts off one of the mountain roads to evacuate all the hunters and crew.

My brother and I sat out the first four days of the season waiting for a break in the weather. When we arrived at ranch headquarters no really good deer had been harvested. We were optimistic. The snow had limited all the hunters to about one third of the ranch. This didn�t bother us too much as we typically hunted the lower country anyway. However, the concentration of hunters was a little unusual for us.

The first day and a half, the best buck we saw out of about 50 bucks spotted was a 28� 4x4, around 170 type deer, and a very interesting tall, heavy, wide buck bedded in the quakies at about three miles away. Couldn�t see what he had because of the trees, but he was intriguing. We jumped to his side of the canyon the next day and hunted all around where we saw him. The best deer we saw was a tall, narrow buck about 160. Spotting back across to where we had been the day before, we saw a couple of bucks in the 180 class chasing does. I spotted this buck and watched him off and on for a couple of hours. I figured his left side about 180, and could tell he had a very cool right side. We called him clubby.

After wandering around all morning and slopping through the mud and snow we decided to cross back over the canyon and see if we could come up with this buck. As we started over another hunter and guide went down the ridge to the west of where this buck had been and blew all the deer out of this draw. We watched twenty deer bullet over the next draw and then stop and relax and feed. I didn�t see clubby go over and thought he may have drifted over earlier, and thus maybe wasn�t so spooked.

We parked on a lookout and started down the ridge. Deer were everywhere. Fifteen does, eight or nine bucks, but not clubby. We got sucked down into this deep hole and sat down where we could see the bottom of the canyon, sort of. We watched for about twenty minutes picking up a buck here and there, but not the one we were after. It was getting late and the big storm forecast for the afternoon loomed on the horizon. I said it was time to burn it back to the truck and my brother agreed. We stood up, took about ten steps up the ridge, when I looked back and a buck was standing on the side hill across the draw. I put my glasses up and said, �That�s him!� Well, we�ve all been there before, hustle and bustle while the buck is running up the other face. Shooting sticks out, adjust the scope power and objective, shell in the chamber, adjust the shooting sticks again, buck still moving up the hill, can�t get him in the scope, another moment of adjustment, finally adjust my position to match the sticks, range finder out 338 yards and still moving up the hill.

I finally got settled, the buck paused at what I guessed was closer to five hundred yards as we had messed around forever. He was quartering up the hill, still a little below our level across the canyon. I put my five hundred yard wire in the middle of his back and squeezed. The bullet hit six inches over his back. He spun down and side hilled it across in front of us. He stopped broadside and looked back to where the bullet had impacted. I put my four hundred yard wire dead center in his chest and squeezed. He took off like a banshee. I got back on him, looked at all his legs, grateful I hadn�t swung a leg. Then I thought maybe I had hit him back too far and it would be a long night trying to trail a wounded buck. About this time he was doing ninety miles an hour. His belly started to get lower to the ground, then his front legs went out from underneath him. He then nosed into the ground, stuck his antlers in the dirt and cartwheeled upside down and didn�t wiggle.

The most bizarre thing I think I have ever seen then happened. Another buck had jumped out of his bed during the melee and ran over to the downed buck. This was 170 class four by four. This buck ran up to my buck, stood over him, then ran around in front of him. He postured for a few seconds, then jumped at the dead buck, locked horns, shook him in a sparing motion twice, then jumped back and postured again. It was so cool. This other buck stood over this buck for almost ten minutes, moving around and over him. I have never seen this happen, ever.

So this buck on his good side had 2 � inch eyeguards, 4 5/8 inch bases, 22 inch main beam, 15 inch g2, 10 inch g3, 9 inch g4. Doubled he would gross 180. His right side looked like it had been injured in the velvet and broke down and back just past his eyegaurd. He had three clubbed points on that side and thick, dried velvet on the end of his beam. Outside spread was 32 3/8 inches! I guess I have broken the thirty inch barrier finally. Maybe I came through the back door, but getting there is getting there.
I have seen some other bucks with deformities, but none in this class.

Autopsy revealed dead center heart shot, exploding his heart. Both lungs obviously, broken rib in, broken rib out. Complete pass through. I have no complaints with bullet performance.

Equipment used: D�Arcy Echols 300 Weatherby Mag with a fluted Kreiger cryo treated barrel, 200 grain Accubond bullet over 79.5 grains of 7828, Norma brass, and Federal magnum match primers. MV 3000 fps. Leupold 4.5 x 14 VariX III with stadia wires installed by Premier Reticles. Tony Diebold shooting sticks.

I will likely never harvest another buck like this one in my lifetime!

Fjold, Arco is very close to to the INEEL, the national nuclear engineering lab. I wonder if that had something to do with your doe's mutations.

At the time, I was an instructor at the Navy's Nuclear Power Training Unit at the INEL.

Coincidently (?) I fathered triplets.

Very nice buck! In 1985 I was hunting outside of Arco, Idaho and saw a small 4 point standing on the edge of the woodline at about 200 yards. It was my first year hunting in Idaho and I shot it. When I got to it the left side was a 4 point and the right side was a 10" inch long blunt spike. This was really something until I rolled it over to gut it and discovered it was a doe. When I stopped at the check station the F&G ranger took all of my information and they called me the next day requesting the head for examination.

Utah. Still snowing today!

The deformed antler is what got this buck in trouble. It's not healthy to carry around a very unusual set of head gear this time of year.

NICE buck !! Conglads. Sounds like you had a good hunt.

Great looking deer. I probably would have been a little less reserved than you were. I'd have shot the first buck with antlers I saw.

Sevens

PEPPER - "This past week we had four feet of snow in forty eight hours in the high country."
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What State??

Nice buck, no matter the deformed antler.

\L.W.