(Photo by Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.)
"When the full rack was scored, the total was 312 ⅜ inches. That made it the highest-scoring buck ever shot by a hunter."
The previous record, 307 ⅝, was set in Iowa in 2003 by 15-year-old Tony Lovstuen, also with a muzzleloader. The biggest rack ever measured was 333 ⅞ on a deer in Missouri, but that was a pickup, or found deer, not one shot by a hunter.IN THE COMMENTS: Annie C said:
Frankendeer. I hate them. Too many land managers using boosted feed.Here's a Humane Society article on the subject.
Posts
62 comments:
I bet he even voted for Trump!
Can we impeach Trump for this?
Frankendeer. I hate them. Too many land managers using boosted feed.
That doesn't look like a deer that was older and had a large rack.
It looks like a freak of nature.
Blogger Annie C said...
Frankendeer. I hate them. Too many land managers using boosted feed.
You beat me to it.
Frankendeer. I hate them. Too many land managers using boosted feed.
Is that what goes on? Juiced? I only know B&C Whitetails from MT or ID, where they're not on feed. Even the non-typicals just look like good mulies.
If i'd seen that over my rifle my hand would have been shaking so hard I would have had better luck throwing a bullet at it.
-XC
It doesn't seem fair that some bucks have so many points and some have so few. Inequality!
Rob-Bullwinkle would look good over your mantel.
It doesn't seem fair that some bucks have so many points and some have so few.
Are we sure that's from a buck? Perhaps the deer identified as a doe.
Thanks for the info about "frankendeer." I did an update on the front page.
It's golden showers down on the farm below! And, now AA's on about "big racks".
It's all porn, all the time, here @ Althouse!
Plenty of deer in the wild to hunt.
The buck stopped here.
If that's as good as it gets I think they need a new scoring system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKa0sgImaLs
On a recent trip to New Zealand I saw lots of deer farms, something I had never seen before in my life. Apparently New Zealand is where we get most of our retail venison. Why hasn't the United States embraced deer farming?
Whenever I see someone talking about shooting bucks for their racks I think of all the people suffering from Lyme disease, spread by too many deer. Ya think they could just shoot a doe just once in a while but no. Lyme disease is a rural/white man's disease and has been neglected by the current administration.
Shooting captive deer in a fenced in environment isn't hunting, and the people doing it are not hunters.
Annie C and eric call the animal a "Frankendeer," and it truly does seem to be a mutant of some sort. But where is there a connection to boosted feed? If the two of you can point to an article where there is some connection (and not just conjecture) of a relationship between overdeveloped antlers and some supplement in livestock feed, I'd be much obliged.
As to the article Althouse linked to, I strongly concur that breeding deer for overdeveloped antlers and accustoming them to humans so that they can more readily be taken by wealthy but unskilled hunters is objectionable. (I don't hunt, but most of my acquaintances here in the Shenandoah Valley do -- and I can't picture any of them wanting to "hunt" captive deer.) But deer bred for overdeveloped antlers and deer whose antlers are overdeveloped as a consequence of "boosted feed" are two different things. You may believe it, but absent some scientific demonstration (meaning that the experiment is both well-documented and replicable) of cause and effect then this article is mere hokum. As to its assertions, my understanding is that CWD, a relative of "mad cow disease" first showed up in wild deer populations in Wisconsin. Perhaps it can be spread more readily in captive deer herds but it probably relates to the same source as mad cow disease -- the animals eating contaminated feed. I can't speak to bovine tuberculosis, but my guess is that we don't know how prevalent it is in the wild because predators take the diseased animals relatively quickly.
FWIW we do have evidence of an extinct species of ruminants where natural selection encouraged the development of ridiculously oversized antlers. But the Irish Elk are long gone, unable to cope with Neanderthal spear points.
I don't know much about the rules for "Record Book" deer. But I share the belief that shooting a deer that was selectively bread for a big rack and fed antler enhancing food while it lived out it's life behind a high fence, is in no way a "fair chase" hunt and such deer, elk, or whatever should not qualify for recognition in the record books. Things get a little fuzzier when a landowner provides nutritional supplements for game animals that are otherwise wild. But selective breeding and high fences, that's just not honest if you're going to get competitive about this stuff, and competition is what records books are all about.
I can't get beyond the paywall. Was this a wild deer, or one that was selectively bread?
Bred, not bread. :)
BTW, nothing in the story of this young farmer's hunt for this deer suggests that the deer was bred in captivity. Any individual of any species can be mutated in some form or another. The young man got very, very lucky, and he had the skill and patience to be successful in his hunt.
Well done to him.
(Sorry, Larry, I was answering your question but forgot to "@" you.)
Grotesque photo on several levels.
Perhaps the Humane Society could protest the farming of poors in our cities.
Oso Negro:
Unfortunately, the poors will always be with us.
Thanks for reminding me! I'd almost forgotten that Wayne Pacelle is a total fucking loon and that the Humane Society of the US should be shunned for being almost as extreme and disingenuous about their actual goals as the fanatics at PETA. Stop giving money to these assholes, people. They're a boondoggle. Support your local shelters.
The story stated that the hunter shot the deer on property his family leases for farming (a common practice among farmers) and was using a muzzle loader (hunting seasons are usually staggered so that people using primitive weapons get to hunt a for few days before those using modern weapons can take the field) so it is pretty unlikely that his was what is known as a "canned" hunt.
However, the deer could have escaped captivity. There is no way to know.
"Them big doe eyes... Huge, pert rack."
The story is very unclear...actually doesn't say anything about the deer being farmed. The land the deer was first seen upon was leased by the guy's family. That is not the same as a farmed deer.
I'm unfamiliar with White Tail deer since being out west I have only hunted Mule Deer. The racks and point scoring are completely different.
To assume that he was hunting a farm raised deer is a big assumption based on the paltry information in the article.
Blogger Big Mike said...
Annie C and eric call the animal a "Frankendeer," and it truly does seem to be a mutant of some sort. But where is there a connection to boosted feed?
I don't know, or claim to know, anything about how it got that way.
I just see that rack and think it's a mutant. Like seeing an albino deer in the wild. Some goof of genetics I suppose.
My point was just, hunters tend to celebrate the successful hunt of older, larger, deer. They've survived a long time, grown clever and wiser and harder to hunt. The way to tell an older buck is by his antlers. Sort of a pride in getting the "old man" rather than the stupid "young buck".
I doubt this was an old man. More likely a mutant.
And my guess is, this wasn't a deer farm. More likely an actual farm. They attract deer because the food is good. And if you black powder hunt, the deer aren't spooked yet, so you can get bigger deer.
Do different deer taste different? Very interested in preparing and consuming some venison, but you can't get it except from these Kiwi farms.
Althouse has gone Bill Maher with her update on this story. It should noted that the overall record is still held by the Missouri buck that was found dead of apparent natural causes.
Althouse has gone Bill Maher
I'm sure this means something to you...?
All the other hunters let him live. They were proud of him, and didn't want a trophy for killing him. The meat would have been inedible anyway...
He shot the deer in the wild, sorta, next to a new housing division:
http://www.fieldandstream.com/stephen-tucker-buck-new-world-record-from-tennessee#page-2
I'm beginning to hate deer hunters, they dump the carcasses where I run the dogs, taking a chunk of skull with the horns and leaving the rest. The res-dog knows that a flock of crows means something.
harryo said...
All the other hunters let him live.
Apparently not by choice:
"Tucker had good reason to be cautious. In such a developed area, and in a field on the side of the road, a number of people knew about the deer. Other hunters were after the buck on neighboring properties." (link above)
From the Frankendeer article:
'At the Oak Creek Whitetail Ranch in Bland, Missouri, “one bull elk with a tag in its ear [was] lazily chewing its cud in a grassy meadow. It didn’t bother to turn its head as the Durango drove past…[The owner] paid about $4,500 to have the animal shipped in a few weeks earlier from a farm in South Dakota. He said he’d charge the client who put in his order to kill it about $6,500.”'
$6500 to shoot a tame elk? Am I missing something?
JHapp said...
"Whenever I see someone talking about shooting bucks for their racks I think of all the people suffering from Lyme disease, spread by too many deer. Ya think they could just shoot a doe just once in a while but no. Lyme disease is a rural/white man's disease and has been neglected by the current administration."
I usually get a doe during firearm season. My permit is for either sex but the bow hunters have made the bucks skitish. Also. There is a antlerless only hunt at the end of the year in certain state parks.
A lot of does I'm seeing have had two fawns.
Bad Lieutenant said...
"Do different deer taste different? Very interested in preparing and consuming some venison, but you can't get it except from these Kiwi farms."
Yeah they do if their diet is substantially different. Also how well its dressed out in the field. A friend of ours has a meat locker and we let them hang for a week to age. Makes a world of difference.
"Whenever I see someone talking about shooting bucks for their racks I think of all the people suffering from Lyme disease, spread by too many deer. Ya think they could just shoot a doe just once in a while ..."
I don't hunt but many friends and family members do. Often on leased land (timber or coal company land) - totally different that the fenced in farms. Here in Alabama you get "tags'. Typically get several doe tags for every buck tag. Don't use your tags, you'll get fewer next year. So the does do get taken.
A few are used for personal consumption. Then, absent an outstanding specimen the deer are usually hauled to a processor. The processor gets the hides and the poor get the meat.
I should note that as a motorcyclist I'm ALL for thinning the herd.
Damn meat missles.
" strongly concur that breeding deer for overdeveloped antlers and accustoming them to humans so that they can more readily be taken by wealthy but unskilled hunters is objectionable"
If that is objectionable, then eating any meat from an animal that was raised on a farm is objectionable.
" strongly concur that breeding deer for overdeveloped antlers and accustoming them to humans so that they can more readily be taken by wealthy but unskilled hunters is objectionable"
If that is objectionable, then eating any meat from an animal that was raised on a farm is objectionable.
On the land where I hunt, we selectively take both does and bucks for better management. We do not feed; it is a section in Michigan where feeding is prohibited due to an entirely separate concern (transmission of bovine tuberculosis, which fortunately thanks to good management and hunter/landowner cooperation and compliance seems to be nearly nonexistent).
We only shoot 8-point (and up) bucks.
Virtually every huge atypical rack (there are lots and lots of them that look like the new record rack in the picture) in Michigan is taken in fields and woods, and not in any "ranched" area. Some people do feed deer, and I am of course aware of food supplements for antler growth.
I am informed by trusted sources that there are also human food supplements for things like penis growth, higher intelligence, male pattern baldness, erectile dysfunction, etc. I have much the same level trust in all of them.
"The biggest rack ever measured..."
Well that leaves something to the imagination.
I got a rack last week with my car, I didn't stop long enough to count the points, but the $3800 estimate was pretty impressive IMO.
Blogger Roughcoat said...
Oso Negro:
Unfortunately, the poors will always be with us.
1/19/17, 3:48 PM
..and large poors invite pimples.
The rule for killing deer is simple: Thou shall NOT kill deer. End the reign of terror of hunters, Hoosiers, rednecks, billionaires, & Trump. Return the country to the indigenous people; everybody else get the hell out of here. Take your guns with you! This is a message brought to you by Red Nationalist Movement, or ALT RED. Remember Little Big Horn.
It's lean meat, no/low fat. Healthy supplement to the diet.
Healthy only in very limited quantities. It's too lean. If your diet was limited exclusively to venison you'd soon be dead due to the phenomenon known as "rabbit starvation."
@exhelodrvr1, it's one thing to hunt deer with their natural skittishness in the wild. It's another to shoot an animal that's been acclimated to humans. If we got our beef and pork and mutton that way, I'd object to that too.
Deer are a plague in Wisconsin. They are so numerous that they have suppressed forest regeneration nearly everywhere, especially by browsing juvenile hardwood trees. WDNR says that gun hunters killed 598,000 deer in 2016, and bow and crossbow hunters 235,000. That's a lot of meat on the table, but still not enough for forest health.
Beth B. stated it as well, but there is a huge difference between the Humane Association (good) your local Humane Society (also good) and the Humane Society of the United States (evil). The article linked to is from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).
Here is an article which explains how the HSUS encourages and benefits from the confusion between the three names, and how it uses that confusion to enrich itself while doing very little to support the humane treatment of animals.
Reminds me a bit of this Georgia O'Keeffe subject - which has fewer than half the number of points, I think.
Apologies. Here is the link to the article that talks about the Humane Society of the United States.
Going to the Humane Society for a balanced view on deer hunting is rather like going to The Nation for a balanced view on capitalism.
Not commenting on the content of the Humane Society article here, but the Humane Society of the United States is an absolutely evil organization that literally goes around stealing people's pets and euthanizing them. Nothing they say should be believed.
Why hasn't the United States embraced deer farming?
CWD would be my guess.
I grew up around hunters, but didn't hunt. Venison does not appeal to me, unless it's made into sausage. The one time I cooked venison steaks -- brought into town by my college roommate -- was a bloody disaster, emphasis on bloody.
On my land,not high fenced), it's hard to find a buck that's legal to shoot (one whose antler spread is wider than the ears). As a result, I haven't taken a buck in several years.
It's all downhill for this guy now.
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