It's been a little while since I've written although there's been plenty of miles put on my Muck Boots. I've walked all kinds of small woods that I've been curious about and have come up empty handed. Well, dad found one little antler a couple weeks ago in a woods that was near our last sighting of Curly in 2010. Dad picked up this little two year old antler that had been there quite a while. I'd say at least two years, probably more.
Then last week, mom answered back and got herself off the goose egg by coming across the little droptine side of a buck I got pictures of a couple times in July by the gravel pits. I can't decide if he was 2 or 3 in 2011, but either way it's a really cool little antler. Hopefully he keeps the droptine characteristic as he ages.
That was Sunday afternoon, the 25th. A neat addition to this story was that dad said he had walked through that exact area two weeks before (weekend of the 10th-11th) and would have seen that easily. So that buck shed after the 11th of March. This is been pretty common this year as we have set numerous records from warm temperatures to lack of snowfall, etc. This was probably the easiest winter on record for us and for the deer.
I made a few other trips in this time slot, but all came up fruitless:
Then yesterday, Friday the 30th, I went out to check out a new potential hunting area with a friend and afterwards drove up to the cabin and checked on a few things. I made sure there was at least some what of a trophy rock left near the gravel pits and out in the Tweeten woods. Then after school mom and dad joined me and we decided on walking through the cedar swamp where we've had decent luck in the years past. As we got going, we walked through the two slashes that are probably 30+ years old by now and got on to a fabulous trail. I started back-tracking it a ways and ran into dad and told him this was a pretty solid trail. He figured we should spend some more time around it and I didn't really pay much attention to it because I wanted to go west towards the thicker bedding area in the cedars. I met up with mom on the other side of the old slash that the cedar stump mineral site is in and we decided to just let dad find his way toward us. We took off walking west and it wasn't long and I heard my dad yell, "Hey Mitchell! Come and look at this." Since he rarely says stuff like that, I figured he either had no clue how far ahead of him I was, or it was something pretty interesting. I turned around and didn't bother to get mom's attention. Pretty soon I was jogging through the cedars, dodging low-hanging branches and leaping over potholes. As I got closer dad said, "I just thought you'd want to see this." I looked at his feet and there lay a beast of an antler - old as the hills (or so it seemed). We ooo'd and ahhh'd at it for a minute or two and took some pictures and then a video to watch dad pick it up:
This thing was a hawg! It had bases and mass that you dream about, along with an 8" brow tine that just makes you scratch your head! The entire G3 was missing - chewed off by those wretched porkys (sidenote: I need to carry that pistol). This shed, in it's weathered, devoured condition, still measured 63 0/8"! I hardly use exclamation points, so you know how significant this is. We had yet to find any antler from Minnesota Hill that broke the 60" mark. We knew they existed, obviously, but have never been able to locate one - until now. Had this antler not been chewed, I would bet that it would gross between 72" and 74" NT, maybe more. It's hard to get a good feel for the antler unless you really see it. Dad said he'd pay $50 to have it in it's prime mint condition, I would definitely pay more than that.
So the kicker to the story is that as I was on my way home, I was still thinking about any deer in the last 10 years that have been seen or shot with brows that big. The only one that kept coming to mind was a deer that was shot by a neighbor about 3 miles southwest with the bow in 2005. I remembered that I had a picture of it on my phone from a year or two ago and so when I got home, I pulled up the picture. BAM! No doubt. The split G2, the brow, a bunch of junk. No doubt this was the same deer. I couldn't wait to show dad. So this is the same neighbor who shot Inside CrabClaw in September of 2010 and when I was over there looking at his mount of ICC, he was telling me the story to this other "Big Brow Buck" we got to talking about sheds and he said that they rarely ever find sheds on their land, but he pulled one out that he had picked up and after looking at it, I looked back up at the mount and sure enough it was from the same buck. It had a big brow and was nice and heavy. It was definitely not from the previous year, but maybe two years before if not three. To connect dots in the stories of these bigger bucks is such a cool thing too me. I find it so interesting to see where and why these bucks live and die where they do. Fascinating.
We're starting to get a little more busy now with photography and I'm sure the woods will start to get more and more green with this nice weather we've been having, so there won't be too much more looking, but I have yet to really comb the heart of the tamarack swamp or north of the road between John's and Pete's. It's an enormous woods and to say "needle in a haystack" would be not so much of a challenge. After all, how big of a stack can one bale of hay make? Subdivide.
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