Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013 - 4

scoured the area for the next hour
looking for its mate, but came up
empty-handed. At the end of the day,
I stopped to rest on a fallen log on top
of the high mountain that offered a fantastic view of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The air was crisp,
completely still and had now cooled
off. I remember giving thanks for the
discovery I had made that afternoon.
The remainder of 2007 was unproductive as far as any sightings of the
buck that had dropped the chestnutcolored antler. I spent many early summer mornings in search of the buck, but
the chance of ever seeing one particular
buck within the thousands of acres of
thick habitat, especially during the
summer, was slim. I was somewhat new
to trail cameras, but began hanging a
few in the area where I had found the
antler that warm January day. I never
saw the buck during that entire 2007
season. This didn’t surprise me, though,
with the extreme remoteness and my
lack of knowledge of the area, I knew it
was going to take some serious effort on
my part to even get a look at the buck.
In the spring of 2008 I was anxious
to get back to where I had found the
big shed the year before. I hoped the
buck was still alive, and after many days
of shed hunting on the vast mountain
I came away empty-handed. My hopes
of the buck still being alive were fading. I again hung a few trail cameras in
the same area where I had found the
shed, only this year my approach was
a little different. I left the cameras out
without checking them for a month to
minimize the disturbance. I’ve learned
that some big woods bucks will not
tolerate any human odor. In some of
the more remote and rugged regions,
the whitetails may go a year without
4

coming in contact with human odor
until hunting season, and then they
know they are being pursued.
The cameras hung for an entire
month and it was killing me what
might be on them. One morning I left
the truck at the crack of dawn to try to
beat the August heat and hiked my way
in to the two cameras I had set where
two deer trails intersected. I quickly
and quietly changed memory cards in
both cameras and headed home.
As I was scrolling through the pictures on my computer, my excitement
hit an all-time high. There, standing
in front of the camera was a tremendous buck. The 8-point frame was
heavy with tines exceeding 10 inches.
I quickly located the shed I had found
a year-and-a-half before and held it up
to the photo — it was him! I had gotten
two photos of him. The ﬁrst showed
the true height of his rack, while the
second photo showed extremely long
tines from the side. Since I had discovered him that warm January day he had
grown at least another 15 to 20 inches
of antler. He had a tremendous body
and possessed all the characteristics of
a mature buck.
With the history I had of him and
what I knew of big woods whitetails,
I ﬁgured him to be 5½ to 7½ years
old. As I examined the second photo,
something stood out. He had a very distinguishable lump the size of a baseball
just under his throat and chin area. I
had never seen this characteristic on
any other deer. This lump made him
look a little funny, especially when
looked at from the side. I wasn’t sure
what the lump was, and I was concerned it might affect his health; it
certainly wasn’t affecting his headgear.
Was he born with the lump or was it
WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COM

http://WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COM

Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - October 2013