Back to Life
"Having acquired a permit to keep the two sets of antlers, I now needed to find someone who could bring these deer “back to life.” After some intense research, I turned the job over to acclaimed whitetail taxidermist Bill Yox..."
I’m a fanatic when it comes to finding shed antlers, and the search for them has led to a number of states and provinces. So to discover the remains of two big locked-up bucks – in my home state, no less – was one of the greatest “hunting” thrills I’ve ever experienced. Here’s how it happened.
Ever since I started hunting deer with my father in Potter County, Pennsylvania, when I was 12, I’ve been hooked on whitetails. I’ve read deer magazines and books from cover to cover and talked to anyone who would talk with me about deer.
I remember the first time I ever saw a picture of locked bucks. They were from Texas, and just like that state, they were big! I think I stared at that photo for hours, amazed that two bucks could fight so hard that their antlers literally became locked together. After that, I often talked about locked bucks with my friends and family, speculating on what it would be like to find something so rare as that.
On Dec. 26, 1998, I decided to go on a walk on a small horse farm near my house in Chester County, Pennsylvania. My friend Lex Argyropoulos and I recently had been granted permission to videotape deer there, which was exciting. The land had been off-limits to hunters for years, so we knew there were nice bucks around.
As I was walking in that day, I had to skirt around a small pond. While I was doing so, I smelled something dead. I walked up over the side of the pond where the smell was xoming from and to my surprise saw antlers sticking out of the water.
It took me only a second to know what I had just found. I put my camera down, ran out into the icy water and pulled the antlers onto the bank. It was an 8-pointer and a 10-pointer locked together!
I began jumping up and down, screaming and hollering. I was so excited that I actually forgot to take a photo of the two deer while they were still in the water. I left them right there and took off to tell the landowner about my shocking discovery.
I’m pretty sure he thought I was crazy when I ran to his house, told him what I’d just found and asked if I could keep the racks. His response was to “get them smelly dead things out of my pond.”
After that, I went home and called the local game warden to see what I needed to do to keep the antlers. He said to bring them over to is house so he could look them over.
My next excited phone call was to Boston, where my friend Lex was that weekend. I told him the big news, and he couldn’t believe it.
After we’d celebrated on the phone, it was time for me to go back to the farm and get my prize. En route, I stopped by another friend’s house to see if he would help me drag them out. It took only three minutes to talk Ed Elvin into helping me, so we jumped into my truck and were off.
In no time flat, Ed and I had the bucks at the game warden’s home. He looked over the two sets of antlers, charged my $10 a point on behalf of the state and gave me a permit to keep them.
In my area, a big buck would score around 100 to 120 inches. By comparison, each of these bucks was a giant, and a good trophy no matter where you hunt. The 8-pointer measured 133 inches, the 10-pointer 135. Their size made them exceptional for this area, but given the circumstances under which they were recovered, they would be wonderful trophies to me no matter what their racks scored.
Having acquired a permit to keep the two sets of antlers, I now needed to find someone who could bring these deer “back to life.” After some intense research, I turned the job over to acclaimed whitetail taxidermist Bill Yox of Brockport, New York, who was certainly up to the challenge. He mounted the bucks in such a way that the 8-pointer is suspended in midair by the 10-pointer and held only by the locked antlers. Although I wasn’t there that fateful day the bucks became locked together, I can’t help but think Bill’s mount captured the drama of the scene.
As happy as I am to have found those two trophy racks, I must admit that I feel just as sad for the deer that wore them. It’s amazing what the fury of November’s rut will do to two mature bucks that only a few months earlier would have been feeding together peacefully in a soybean field.
(Published in “Battling Bucks!” by “North American Whitetail Magazine,” Vol. 11, 2006)
Pennsylvania Death Match
By Bill Shoemaker