I had the pleasure of holding a Giant pair of sheds this weekend, of a local legend of a buck. My buddy Josh Junghans found this incredible pair of sheds last week, over his lunchbreak. One side is a typical 5 with 13" tines and the other side is a gnarly 4 Main-beamed side scoring over 100. I had to post this as it's one of the coolest pairs I've seen in quite a while. These will be at our Rut Junkie booth in Iowa, here in a couple weeks, for anybody that happens to be there.
That is really cool and nice sized too! I see that there is a lot of other stuff that goes on at the Iowa show rather than the one here in Illinois. Shed contest is one of the things that I have heard.
Hey I know that guy...oh wait that's me! The Local Legend or Double L is for sure #1 on the Team JJ hit list for this year.
I was recently asked about these sheds and realized I never did give an update on the ending of the story of Local Legend on here so sorry for the bump up but thought some might find it interesting... After countless hours this past season trying to catch up with him I finally got pics of him mid Nov. right under my stand in the same area as I had found his sheds. One of the crazy things about the story is he was all typical this past year. Just a giant 5x6 frame. Of course the pics were kept a secret and only shared with my brother and dad. They were not convinced it was him but I had studied those sheds so many times I knew every inch and the typical side was just way too similar to not be him. So needless to say I was in that stand a ton over the next few weeks. His pics were at 10 pm but there was a large group of does there less than an hour before him. Over the next few weeks the does continued to show earlier and earlier everynight and I was sure hoping that with the hot/cold and late running rut that one of them would bring him by in daylight. Never did get to lay eyes on him. Fast forward to Dec. rifle season. We still bowhunt thru rifle season but mainly stay on private during that time. After trying unsuccessfully all summer long to get permission on anything in LL's stomping grounds the only place I could hunt him was the public piece where I had my stand. And then the second day of rifle season the news came...My friend and taxidermist Ron had taken LL with rifle. The news did not surprise me because Ron had been the only one out of numerous people that were "hunting" this deer that had actually had close encounters with him the previous (NT) year and he is also a very good hunter. He actually had him twice at 40 yards the previous bow season but could not get a clean shot. Anyway, so when I heard I ran out to the house and grabbed the sheds over lunch and went straight to Ron's. Sure enough there he was laying on a picnic table with a group of guys standing around. After holding up the typical side shed to the rack there was no doubt in anyones mind that it was him. Turns out Ron was sitting on the ground in some brush just up the hill from my stand that morning...about 150 yards from my stand. He had been doing some rattling and hadn't seen anything. He had just started back to the truck mid morning when he heard a shot in one of the nearby draws. So he stopped to see if anything would pop out on the top he was on and here comes LL. He ran within 50 yards of Ron and the rest is history... He ended up scoring 184 I think and most of us figure he was 7-8 years old. He would have grossed right at 200 the year before. A true Legend... Fast forward to Feb. at a local big buck contest/fundraiser and we got to put together the rack, my sheds and the sheds from the year before mine. It was really amazing to see how much antlers can change. The first set of sheds were typical also! They grossed around 160. So he went from a typical 5x5 to a NT freak to a giant 5x6. I'll try and put some pics up later. On the positive side - you know I am already working on the next one!
Man, I'm gonna have to swing by Ron's and check that out sometime. Seems like he always shoots big bucks lol, all his mounts are ridiculous. I think my deer 2 years ago was the smallest one in the shop
Awesome story josh, I wish you would have been the candidate to get him. Your hard work ethic will pay off for you very soon, just hang in there.
