The Legend of Tank

Like a loved one called into the morgue to identify a body, I walked into a friends cabin and in the middle of stomping the snow off my insulated water boots, I glanced up to see a photograph come to life. There was the antlers of a buck we knew as "Tank". A dozen possibilities ran through my mind as I tried to make sense of it. "How long had it been since I had been in his cabin?" That rack is from 2007. Where has it been? Has it been two and a half months since I had been in there?" Those where some of the many simultaneous thoughts that crossed my mind.

"Where did that come from?", I asked out loud.

"Oh that? I shot that with the muzzleloader a couple years ago." he said.

"2007?" I asked.

"I don't know. A couple years ago. North of Elmer's cabin. He was wounded...came in limping. Someone had shot him." he suggested.

"That was me." I told him. "Opening day of rifle season 2007."

"Really? That was you?" he asked puzzled.

Long story short. He said after skinning him he was all gangrene and so he "just took the head...cause the cape was shot." That part has stuck with me since. What? I'm not going to get into my own theories, and I want to believe him. So I will choose to. Regardless, the first buck that was 'named' at the hill is now dead. Officially. It's kind of nice to have closure. There are many parallels to a mysterious family death you see on a made-for-tv movie. He grossed 130 and net 125 4/8 typical, which was about 20 inches less than I had guessed from the trail cam pictures. This was probably due to the body size of this buck, hence the name. His main beams were each 3 inches shorter than I guessed. the spread was 2 inches narrower. The brows were each an inch shorter. That's 10 inches right there. The G2s were 10 2/8 instead of 11 4/8 and so on. We're learning to be more conservative on our field judgement based on trail cam photos.

Also interesting was that my friend had picked up a set of sheds a year ago from a nice buck my other friend shot this year. I picked them up and laughed out loud. I knew instantly that they were from the same buck. Also, he picked up three fresh antlers from this year. One from Mr. 140 (which actually measured 57 1/8 - putting a Mr. 130) and a matched set from a three year old with split brow. Cool sheds. Definitely a worth-while trip over there. Regardless of the means of tank's 'death and resurrection', I'm just glad to know his dead.