We Found Them! G4's Sheds!
Posted By
Bill Winke
at
1/24/2012 12:00:00 AM
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Drew Yarkosky with both sides from the Double G4 Buck. He found one in the food plot behind him and I found the other in the timber. You can't appreciate how truly giant they are until you actually hold them. |
Figuring that he would soon shed (most deer here shed between about January 15 and Feb 20) I decided to monitor the field as closely as possible. I put out a bag of corn and moved the camera a bit closer to where I figured the buck was coming out.
I pulled the card on January 21, but I didn't find the buck among the deer that showed up. I rebaited the camera and came back in two days. That brings us to yesterday, January 23. I pulled the card from that camera and found an odd sight. First time through I didn't see anything interesting - no big antlered bucks. But then I went back through slower and one deer caught my eye.
It was a very strange looking deer, ears held low, hair missing from the bridge of his nose. Roughed up hair on his rump! Aha, it was him! No antlers. 
This is him without the antlers. Date and time on the photo are correct. We went
back this morning and found both sides! Notice that there is no sign of the arrow
wound on the side of the buck. It zipped through the meat right above the shoulder.
Immediately, I made plans to go look for the antlers this morning. Jared Mills needed me to film a segment for the Properties site so I decided to bring the chainsaw, fire it up, make a bunch of noise, hopefully move all the deer off that way and then as Jared and I filmed the segment showing the results of timber stand improvement from a cut four years ago, Drew Yarkosky and Aaron Warbritton could go find the antlers - or at least look for them.
Funny thing is, as we filming the segment, I nearly tripped over a huge antler. At first I thought, "There must be an even bigger buck here than the G4 Buck!" I didn't realize how big this deer really was. When I dropped the chainsaw and grabbed the giant five point side, I recognized it immediately - it was G4's right side.
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| Another view of the buck's giant sheds. Jared holds the impressive five point side that we nearly tripped over when cutting down some ironwood trees! G3 on that side is 14 inches! |
You don't appreciate how big this buck is until you hold his antlers. I was excited and depressed at the same time. I was so close to actually tagging him! That moment came back to haunt me again. I really would have loved to shoot this buck, but at least I have the sheds. After running a quick tape on the anlters, both sides score just over 90 inches. G3 tines are 14 inches!
So now we are up to Chapter 7 or 8 in the story we are writing about the Double G4 Buck. It will be interesting to see if we can find him back this summer. Based on what we saw last summer, he has distinctly different summer and fall ranges. But at least now we know where to start looking.
Can he grow another big rack even though he will be 7 years old this year? I hope we can find out. We will certainly be looking!
Also, notice in the close up trail cam photo of the buck that you can't see any evidence at all that an arrow ever zipped through the meat above his shoulder. It is as if it never happened. Maybe it was all just a bad dream.
What a cool deer. It has been a privilege to be able to see and hunt such a special animal.
