Posted By: Appels
Eventful Weekend - 11/13/18 08:01 PM
We had a pretty eventful past 5 days at our ranch. One of our members was able to harvest a deer that we'd been following for 3 years now (pictures attached). This off-season, he developed 2 drop tines while in velvet - we are low fence in West TX so this was pretty exciting for us. I think he came out with a total of 14 score-able points, the drops tines were almost gone with him hard horned though. We had him on camera on two different tracts of land that we hunt, 1 week apart - the tracts are 1.5 miles from each other (north/south). This guy was a traveler.
The other one was a 10pt that I myself harvested. We've been following him on camera for 2 years. I saw him a few times while sitting opening weekend, but we all agreed that he needed another year. This weekend, he came to my feeder with his face all bloody, fresh/bright red - I'd never seen anything like it. After studying him, it looked like his bottom jaw/teeth were literally hanging off. Every time he tried to grab some protein from the feeder, he would jump back and shake his head like it hurt or something was wrong... I figured at that point that he needed to go, or risk letting him walk and dying/starving out somewhere - so I took him. Overall, I'm real proud of the deer, just wish the circumstances and timing were different. He will be going on the wall and will provide a good deal of meat for the family.
We couldn't decide if he got in to a fight with a bigger deer and just got his butt kicked, or if he got caught up in a hog trap somewhere (none on our place), or something along those lines. Strangely, he did have a decent amount of bailing twine or something similar wrapped up on his rack - you can see it in the pics. I held on to it prior to dropping him off at the taxidermist, I'll add it back for character upon his return.
The other one was a 10pt that I myself harvested. We've been following him on camera for 2 years. I saw him a few times while sitting opening weekend, but we all agreed that he needed another year. This weekend, he came to my feeder with his face all bloody, fresh/bright red - I'd never seen anything like it. After studying him, it looked like his bottom jaw/teeth were literally hanging off. Every time he tried to grab some protein from the feeder, he would jump back and shake his head like it hurt or something was wrong... I figured at that point that he needed to go, or risk letting him walk and dying/starving out somewhere - so I took him. Overall, I'm real proud of the deer, just wish the circumstances and timing were different. He will be going on the wall and will provide a good deal of meat for the family.
We couldn't decide if he got in to a fight with a bigger deer and just got his butt kicked, or if he got caught up in a hog trap somewhere (none on our place), or something along those lines. Strangely, he did have a decent amount of bailing twine or something similar wrapped up on his rack - you can see it in the pics. I held on to it prior to dropping him off at the taxidermist, I'll add it back for character upon his return.
