smokepole;
Good afternoon sir, I hope the day down in your section of Colorado is going more than less to plan and you're well.

With apologies to those who've read the story before, I shot him thinking he was a different buck and was unaware of him or anything close to that big.

While we do have some whitetails here, it's not great habitat and the MoE isn't managing them particularly well in my opinion. They're not Dakota subspecies either so while we do hear stories of them being taken that go 175lb hanging carcass, I've never seen one that big, much less killed one that size. Most years I'll maybe see one whitetail buck all season. Some years like last season I saw more moose than whitetails in total, despite hunting for both enough to get a thankyou card at Christmas from Esso - for diesel consumed.... wink

This one in '87 was considered a pretty big body - went 138lb into the cooler - and was aged at 7½ when I sent a tooth in.

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This one from '92 was taken less than a kilometer from where the one on the sled came from, was 139lb into the cooler and I didn't get it aged but would guess 4 or 5? It's interesting to note that the palmation and small kickers between tines was present then, which was 20 years previous to the one on the Dead Sled.

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The one above I shot when I kicked it up in heavy brush, called to to a halt and then saw a brow tine in the binos. I thought it was a spike, so shot it in the neck which was the only clear spot.

With the bigger one, I'd had an unusual year in that I'd actually seen 2 different bucks, one first rack 3 point and a second rack 4 point. On the second last weekend of season I missed the first rack buck standing broadside at maybe 80 yards. What happened and how I pulled that off remains a mystery to me smoke, but I did....

I recall thinking as it was running off, "Man it's running good with no lungs?" As it turned out it's lungs were fine since there was no indication of a scratch in the snow that day.

On the last weekend of season then, I was sitting on a stump and had completed my second series of calls with a grunt tube, when I saw antler tips coming through the replanted Doug Fir. Quickly I figured out where it'd give me a clear shot, so I stood up and shot it freehand as it's head made it past the Doug Firs. I was using a different rifle that weekend, being somewhat superstitious that way I'd left the one I'd missed with in the safe and dragged out a rifle that's been a bit "lucky" for me over the years, a reworked 77 Liberty Model rebarreled to .308 Norma in a stock I did up from a Richards semi-inletted blank.

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You can see the trickle of blood where the 168TSX went in.

Interestingly it was super skinny, having no fat on the internal organs, very little on the rump and the rib fat had turned that pink color that it does when the animal is stressed. It weighed 125lb into the cooler so 15lb lighter more or less than the other two of the same age class. It's teeth were really worn too and though I didn't get it aged - that's not available for us though the MoE anymore - cutbacks - I'd say the teeth were at least as worn as the 7½ year old if not more so. It still surprises me how it grew the rack it did with the teeth in such rough shape.

I did score it once and want to say that the way it is - there's a broken tine on the right side - it's 167" gross or that's the number I recall now?

For our part of the world I've seen and personally scored two that were just a tad over 185, so there are bigger racks sometimes killed here, but the top two photos represent what would be considered "decent" south Okanagan bucks.

Hope that made sense, all the best and good hunting.

Dwayne

The most important stuff in life isn't "stuff"