This last rifle hunting season was tough on a lot of our good bucks. Friday... the guy I work with and I were checking out an old farmstead to see if the beaver were still in there cutting down trees. He spied a dead deer floating in the water along the slough bank so we went to investigate. We walk down to it and he says it looks like someone cut it's head off. I started laughing as he was looking at the butt end of it. LOL In his defense... there was a lot off loose hair floating all around the deer and at first glance it did look funny. Ok what am I saying... he was looking at the butt end !! There is no defense !! ROFLMAO I spied a tine and part of the main beam under the water. The water was a bit murky so I had know idea how big the buck was. He fetched a long stick. I hooked the rack and started dragging it in. I imagine it looked comical as hell since I was reaching way out and the guy was hanging on the back off my jacket so I didn't fall in. The water looked really deep in that spot. I managed to get a hold of the tine and pulled it out of the water. We were both really surprised when the rack popped out of the water. I think we both said dammit at the same time as it was a good buck with character. We looked at it for a bit and decided to let it dry out and air out as it stunk something horrid. I only had my cell phone so no good pictures that day. Flash foward to tonight. I had to go pull ladder stand since I got news the beaver in that spot were working on the tree I had it against. Tyler hadn't got to see the buck yet so he came along to help pull the stand and go see the buck. This time I was armed with a camera to get some good pictures of the buck. Here is the picture of the tree and my ladder stand. I really got to get rid of these beaver as we don't have many trees in my area. We forgot to grab a tape to measure the buck and I will get that done tomorrow. Here are some more pictures of the buck... We got home and Tyler went digging in the shed pile since he know we had one of the buck's sheds. He was right and found the right side to the buck from the last two years. The dead buck was a 5.5 year old. The shed when he was 3.5 years old went 54 7/8. At 4.5 years old that side went 57 with a busted brow tine so should have been around 59- 60". We are certain the sheds are from this buck. It is amazing how he grew two Flyers on his G2 and added another point inbetween what was his G3 and G4 last year and the year before. I hate finding dead bucks especially good ones like this. I will score him tomorrow and update this post. The water actually preserved him pretty well and he died sometime during rut. He neck was still swollen from rut and not from bloating. He wasn't bloated at all. Looks like his bottom jaw was busted from either being shot, hit by a vehicle or from fighting. We didn't dig around as he still stunk really bad but I have a feeling he was shot. We will let the coyotes and time clean him up so I can figure it out as I am curious. Tim
Thats one heck of a buck ... dang Tim... too bad to see him gone. Lots of character in that big boy. HAHAHA.. nice tree the BEAVER picked to chew on!
Wow Tim, that is a shame.... that is one awsome buck. I guess the only good thing is that you know what happened and you have his head so he can atleast be admirred by you! As far as dead-heads..... this is by far the best year for me as I have only found one dead deer while shed hunting and it appeared to be a small doe.... normally I would find atleast a dozen or more.
Another day or so and I would have been out a ladder stand. Good thing the landowner was out looking at his fields and let me know. Boy the beaver has done a lot of damage. He has got to go. We also seen one swimming were the dead buck was also tonight at the other old farmstead. Tyler did a rough guesstimate on the buck and came up with 70 plus on the right and 65ish on the left. With a 15 inch spread since he is a narrow buck... puts him some where around 150 - mid 150's. I figured he would go over mid 150's. Tim
We usually find 5 - 8 dead bucks during shedding. This year wasn't any different. More really nice ones then normal though!! Tim
Man that rack had some character to it. bummer he didn't make it this past yr. Any obvious gun shot wounds you could see? or do you think that it was an archery victim? At least you have the previous sheds.
To hard to tell right now without cutting him open. The jaw looks busted. Definitely not an archery victim as I am the only one who bowhunts that spot. I was only in there a couple times last fall and didn't see any bucks. I wished I would have spent more time in there now. He would have been a great bow buck !! The spot is horrible for poachers during rifle season. I suspect he was shot more so then hit by a vehicle as the nearest road only sees a lot of action during rifle season. Tim
that stinks, really nice buck. never saw a tree that had a stand in it get chewed up like that, cool pic
I can't stand poachers Tim and it seems they are starting to pop out of the wood work around my hunting spots. This past rifle season my buddy let a solid 110" 8 point walk during rifle season only to watch it go down the hill and some guys shoot it from the road. They threw the deer into the bed of their truck and were gone before my buddy could get down to them. People like that need to be locked into a room and be pelted with stones for several hours.
You wouldn't have enough rooms nor stones to handle the outlaws here. It gets pretty wild here. I am glad we only have a 2.5 week rifle season. I wished we had more trees just for the deer to have more spots to hide in. You will see more pickups on the road... road hunting then you see people hunting. It is just too open and it doesn't take long for them to load up a poached deer and get out of Dodge !! More Game Wardens would be nice also !!! In that respect I am glad I don't own land. You would just be patrolling it instead of hunting. You really have to be a hard ass if you want to keep them at bay. You hear the saying, " 90% are good hunters, it's the 10% that ruin it for everyone". Switch those two numbers around and it fits my area to a T. It is really tough to find good rifle hunters that follow the rules. I am dead serious. It really is quite sad. Tim
Thats a darn shame about the buck Tim he was sure a nice one, And that beaver been working its butt off on that tree.
Never personally saw a beaver working on a tree like that outside of the cartoons. Heck of a buck. Too bad he had to meet his end like that.
Man I would liked to have seen a picture of that buck with you smiling behind him bow in hand. Good find though Tim.
That's a shame about the buck. He was defninitely a nice one. Good thing you got that stand when you did or it may have been part of a beaver dam. I hear what you're saying about the road "hunters." It's not as open here, but we've got 1 million hunters and a lot of them consider their front seats their best stand.
That really suck about the VERY nice buck. Also, the picture of the treestand that the beaver has been messing with is wild. I have never seen them work on a tree that size.
I finally got to measure the rack today with all the rain we've had in the last couple days. He grossed 160 4/8. His normal side ( left ) went 68 and the right went 78. He was a narrow buck with an inside spread of 14 4/8 but boy did he make it up. Takes a heck of a buck to break 160 here. Wished they would have been sheds... course that would have meant sleepless nights waiting for summer scouting to get here. LOL Tim
That blows Tim. Man I hate finding "dead heads". Looks like a real good charactered older fella... too bad.
That is one heck of a buck, sad he didn't make it. It's a good thing you checked on the beavers before you found your ladder stand mangled and twisted!
