Not the biggest buck as far as antlers go, but he is for sure the oldest deer I've ever shot. The only problem was that it was too quick, I shot him on the evening of the 2nd day of rifle season. I passed on a really nice looking 2 1/2 year old the first evening and watched a couple spikes roaming all over the property and saw one forkhorn as well. I didn't see a doe the entire time.
About 30 minutes before sunset a spike crossed one of my fields and came through the creek bottom and then about 5 minutes later Doublewide followed him up out of the creek bottom. About 5 minutes later he was on the ground. Shot was at 125 yards and I actually hit him a little forward of where I was aiming and went through both shoulders and he dropped on the spot.
He is actually so old his antlers are regressing. He had a pretty nice rack last year and that's when he got the nickname of "Doublewide." This year he lost about 4" in spread and about 10" in tine length and some mass as well. He actually is fairly small bodied for a buck in my area, so it made his rack look a little bigger than it actually was also. He weighed 172lbs on the hoof.
He only scores 112 2/8 but he is still one of my all time trophies in my eyes. I'm working on bleaching his skull out and trying to decide how to mount it. I'm wanting to put his jawbones on there somehow, I think they are as much of a trophy as his antlers. Also thinking of putting some of last years trail camera pictures with it as well as some of the harvest pictures on a plaque or something. Oh well, now for the pictures.
Self portrait with a timed camera on the backpack:
Here are some trail camera pictures that show that his antlers actually were smaller this year than last year.
First a comparision of his spread. First picture is before he shed last year's antlers, second picture is when he was pretty much done growing this years antlers. I don't have any pictures of him after he shed the velvet off of this years antlers for a perfect comparison, but you can see that he is several inches narrower this year than last year.
Next is a comparision of his tine length. Again, the first picture is before he shed last year's antlers, second picture is when he was pretty much done growing this years antlers. His right side was particularly smaller this year than last year.
The only negative aspect of the whole thing is that the county that I hunt in is a 1 buck county, so it looks like that is the end of my deer hunting for this year.
Another interesting thing about this weekend was the number of predators that were out during the day. I saw 3 coyotes and a bobcat all during the day. I ended up shooting all 3 of the coyotes. 1 was at 256 yards, 1 was at 251 yards and 1 was at 125 yards. I was feeling pretty good about my shooting abilities after that and dropping Doublewide with one shot, but somehow I missed a pig that came into the feeder after dark the last evening!
Here are some pictures of a couple of the coyotes that I shot. I didn't include one because it ended up pretty messy. I was shooting 175 grain bullets out of my 7mm Reg Mag so it was a little overkill for coyotes.
Well, I might have exceeded the allowable post size with this one! I actually have some pretty good trail camera shots to post as well but I'll save that for later.
I guess that's it for now.
Nathan
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