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Ski

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Coffee County
Over summer I had a mature 140s 9pt hanging around and he stayed into fall after other bucks had shifted off. Dad killed him last week and the buck was missing his entire left beam. I was surprised to see such a big dominant buck broken and have never personally seen it happen before.

Then as i was checking cams yesterday i noticed a 130 class 8pt with a big hole in the back of his neck where he'd been gouged while fighting, and his faced was freshly scarred up. I wondered if he wasn't the one who broke the big 9pt that my dad killed.

But then today I see that my biggest buck on cam has his right side freshly broken off as of last night. What kind of buck messes with a 170 class, let alone breaks his entire beam off? Thats three very big, strong, heavy bucks that have been beaten up badly. Ive not seen anything on cam that could do this and I've never experienced a situation like this. Ive got a head hunter buck roaming around ruining all the other big ones.

First two pics are the 9pt before and after the break.
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Third pic is the 170ish buck a few days ago. Fourth and fifth are him yesterday afternoon after the break. I'll get pics of the 8pt with gore hole in his neck.
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20231029_130533.jpg

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Geez - I'd look for a tank of a body for sure. He may likely be a buck that scores very low, but heavy mass. We had this very problem in 2021 and never figured out the culprit. Atleast 3 bucks had busted racks, including our #1 target deer. Broke it off right at the base - and we called him "moose", as he was thick and palmated. Would have paid money to see the culprit
 
Yeah I'm hoping to find him. I'm guessing by his attitude he's fiercely territorial, so it's likely his core area will be tore up with big rubs and scrapes. Shouldn't be hard to spot. He'd better be a giant. He robbed me of opportunity at a potential booner :mad:
 
My goodness



The 2nd buck is a brute. You have any moose roaming on the property?
 
Exactly... hes territorial. Which means he is locked into a small area since he isn't using your camera spots. Move cams or add a new couple cams in areas you have ignored. He's gonna have a ton of mass. May or may not score well. Needs to be located and killed asap.
 
megalomaniac said:
Exactly... hes territorial. Which means he is locked into a small area since he isn't using your camera spots. Move cams or add a new couple cams in areas you have ignored. He's gonna have a ton of mass. May or may not score well. Needs to be located and killed asap.
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Agreed. I've got the backpack loaded with cams ready for a hike tomorrow. I'll find him. He doesn't seem like he'll be much flight risk either so maybe I'll get lucky. Hopefully I can play on his aggression and bring him in with some rattling.
 
JCDEERMAN said:
I'll add that in 2021, it happened in this same timeframe 10/28-11/2. That's interesting
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I'm guessing it's when the first does are popping hot. All daylight activity I'm getting is related to does. A few does are showing extra interest in scrapes while most are side stepping them. And every daylight mature buck on cam over last week has been with or chasing a doe.
 
Have seen a few deer over the years with bad attitudes, we had several busted racked deer around in those years. One was this one.
MFDC5447.JPG

My youngest daughter and I watched him during the youth hunt, and I would see him several times during that season. When he started coming other deer in the plot went to full alert, and most left. Even with not much left for antlers, he continued fighting heavy.
In December we saw him and got pictures of him with a golf ball sized "tumor" on his jaw. He seemed to have minimal issues when I watched him eating soybeans.
MFDC2882 scrapeline-1.jpg

We would see him again the next year. Deer had the same white face and same ear notches in both years. My wife killed what we are sure was the same deer in the next season, he had an abscess in one of his teeth on the same side where the tumor had been. Interestingly enough, his goofy rack was messed up on the right side the previous year.
MFDC4953.JPG
 
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philsanchez76 said:
Wow that sucks those bigguns got tore up. Are you in a spot where you can let them walk till next year?
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Yeah for the most part. I'd guess 30%-50% of bucks using the property are return customers. A few live on ot very near. A few pop in just for the fall & winter, and a few pass through once never to be seen again. Neighbors and public land hunters get a share, too. I'm surrounded three sides by 10,000 acres of state forest. It's not often a public land hunter ventures this deep but the ones who do are serious and do so with a purpose. Otherwise most hunters around here just put piles of corn in the woods behind their house and call it hunting. That's the beauty of a bait legal state. Makes people lazy lol
 

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