Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Heaviest VERIFIABLE weight of a deer, field dressed

Muley Stalker, you have said in two lines what it took me half a page to try to say- (Maybe I should be a politician)

Here is a sight that tells you how to estimate deer weights and gives a definition of field dressed and hanging weight I don't know how accurate it is, but you can give it a try. Sure would like to see some of those 300-400 pounders around here. Biggest I ever saw was right at 200 lbs and it won the heaviest deer in the Muy Grande deer contest in South Texas that year. C

I hunted Maine in '01 and '02 and can vouch that little has changed on that score. Some of the real fanatics may get them scored but the "Biggest Bucks in Maine Club" is still based on 200-lbs. dressed weight. My pard up there can quote deer weights like the average kid can quote Playstation 2 titles.

In '02 I saw a buck that went 245 lbs. dressed, hanging head up from a game pole. (The hard-core locals all have their game poles in the front yard, often with an outdoor lighting system for display purposes.) This buck had truly no neck, just a straight taper top and bottom, from nose to shoulders.

Bear in mind that as I understand it up there, it's illegal to dismember a deer in the field, so a drag ... is a drag. And of course there is always some good-natured controversy as to whether someone's "dressed weight" still included the heart, lungs, and any blood forward of the diaphragm.

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Supertrucker, Muley nailed it on elk weights. My experience echos his. We got a 347 Net bull last year that topped 850 lbs. on the hoof. He was in the 7-8 year old class and totally prime all the way around. I have never seen a bigger bull on the ground. We got 375+ lbs. of boneless meat out of him. It was extemely hot and the flies took a lot of meat, hence the low meat recovery. He was beyond big! I usually get an average of 220 lbs. of boneless meat off of rag horn bulls and normal sized cows. Herd cows will fetch 300+ lbs. of boneless meat. The average cow hovers right around 450-500 lbs. on the hoof. My buddy spanked a herd cow last year at 3 yards with a bow (he has it on video). She was the biggest cow I have ever seen in my life. She would tip the scales at an easy 650-700 lbs. on the hoof. Flinch

A couple of years ago I recall reading that a man shot a deer just north of Omaha, NE, that dressed out at nearly 400 lbs. As I recall, it was arrowed at dusk and recovered the next day on the banks of the Missouri River. It had a small rack, but it was a huge deer.



Last summer I saw a deer in a soybean field south of Omaha, also close to the Missouri River, that was so big that it looked like a Jersey Cow. I nearly put the car in the ditch twisting my head around to look at it.



Jeff

300 lb Blacktail? Do you have any more details, like antler score? Is it any of the record books? Is it consdiered a Columbia or cascade Blacktail? Can you post a pic?

Blaine