At 376 lbs, that buck is absolute freak for this area! It is akin to an 8 foot tall human.
I've lived here my entire life in this area and have seen hundreds of dead whitetails and never seen or heard of anything even close to that.
I've weighed a few of the bigger bucks that I've killed and anything field-dressed that goes over 175 is a good buck. Something that goes much over 210 is gonna turn heads.
From what I have seen, 180-220 lbs field dressed is by far the norm for an older buck living good in this area. It's hard to imagine something that would be a 100 lbs bigger.
You got yourself a freak of nature. Congrats on one heckuva deer.
It is simply amazing. do you think the area had more or better food?
Could have? But if LC is running into wolves, this buck is probably a deer that probably didn't spend summer grazing in wheat and alfalfa fields.
I think it might have something to do with a particular area producing big bodied deer. Just like some areas are prone to producing non-typical racks, yet 20 miles away a non-typical is rare. We have a river drainage in this area that can produce female lions with skulls big enough to make P&Y. That isn't the norm for most areas.
At 9.5 years old, that buck was ancient which led to many years of allowing it to grow as big as possible. Hard winters, preds, human and furred, make it tough for a deer to last that long in this area. Whether it was food, genetics, or being in a place where a buck can live a long life, something about that deer and area made it grow into freaky size.
