MF I tried to post the article but I kept getting error. Back maybe 30 years ago Ed Hall of Glidden found and killed one .. Google it.... It was west of Glidden on hwy 77. American Archery made a poster of it. The Head later burned up in a Bar fire in Glidden (Scotty's).
it was always my dream to find a set of locked antlers,,,,, I know that sounds awful on the part of what the deer is going thru, but it is the truth,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I would feel terrible to find locked bucks. I would do anything possible to get them free. I think it should be illegal to shoot locked bucks unless it was a warden.
Enjoyable photos of bucks in the wild doing what bucks do,...bumping antlers! Which to my way of thinking begs the question, "how often, in person, do we see this?"
My apologies if it seems I am stealing another's thread, that is not my intention, but when you think about it, this is something we seldom see. In years of bowhunting and thousands of hours on stand I have seen bucks casually sparring a small number of times and I have never seen a hard-ass, knock-down, drag-out fight between two bucks. Have you? When, where, what happened, etc., etc.,....?
I had 3 rare moments in my life hunting deer.... all occurred in Bayfield county by the Bibon swamp in the early 80's......... One day I heard a commotion, that sound like a train wreck,,,, I had no video camera back than etc, and here I come up on a hell of a fight, with two big bucks,,,, it was brutal and real, they were trying to kill each other period,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, they broke away, and maybe winded me, but they took off, one very slowly.................. it gave me goose pimples,,,,,,,, I never saw this again....
I looked the area over, and never saw an area, with so many scrapes, and what Fratzke use to call a community scrape, I mean it was the size of a kids pool, and spoked wheel with trails,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, never saw that again either, and it never returned to that spot,,,,
Of course I hunted it, right than and now,,,,,, shot a buck there during rifle season a nice 8, but nothing compared to what I saw there, and the sign left...............
The next encounter I had, was it was Thursday prior to gun, I was walking in to check a stand, I set earlier. here comes a nice buck, down the trail,,, it is grunting and its ears are pinned back, and looking right at me, and continued to approach.... no doubt in my mind it was going to charge, and I took cover, behind a big maple, and even there I was exposed,,,,, no weapon other than a knife,,,,,, the buck came within 10 feet, and took off, and to say I almost peed in my pants was to put it mildly............
I shot that buck on opening morning at 10:30am and mounted him, just because of the memory of that encounter, and that was the buck, who wanted to kill me,,, ha ha never happened again.......
My third encounter, was I just filled my tag, a few days earlier,,,, it was a cold and icy day, you could not walk anywhere, without being noisey, so what the heck, why try, and I was scouting,,,,,,,,, Out over the bog, after I cracked the ice, no more than 50 yards, up stood, a big 12, with double drop tines, just looking at me,,,,, there was fog in the back ground and it was a classic Michael Sieve painting scene.....
I hunted that area for the next 3 years, never saw him again,,,,, but seeing him was so special, that was good enough
Like Case, after 1000s of hours on stand, I've seen dozens of sparring contests but only 1 brutal fight. As I'm sure, I mentioned before, after gun season I have a influx of deer onto my property and adjoining which makes for some interesting situations between the bucks. About 1995 December 29th I was sitting on the edge of a cedar swamp and there was 6" of crusty snow on the ground. At about 3:30 afternoon I had a nice buck coming through the hardwoods towards me, when he got about 75-100 yards away a Big Bruiser came out of the swamp and stiff legged it right up to the incomer and then they charged each other just like the Rams on Marty Stouffer did. They both were bellowing which was unbelievable, well after 15 minutes of this there were about 7-9 onlooker bucks that came out to watch the show. The fighting bucks had to actually stop and rest and they would just pant while they were locked up. Eventually, they broke apart and one chased the other back thru the hardwoods and out of site from me. One of the other bucks that was watching the show happened by my stand on the way back into the swamp. He became a nice 9 point for the wall.
That would be exciting to see Trapper. I've never watched a full blow fight. I have watched bucks lightly spar a handful of times. I did watch two 1.5 year old 5 and 6 pointer posture and all bristled up. I thought they had the look to kill on their face. They turned into one another and tink! That was it! Lol...
When I was maybe 15 or 16 I was scouting with a stand on my back during the rut. I came across a small dry swamp with the ground all tore up. It was evedent that two mature bucks had fought for a good while there.
Here is what kind of weird kid I was. I had that Ed hall poster of those locked bucks up in my room as a teenager. That and a ton of other hunting/bow/gun stuff and cars. But that poster and the story behind those bucks was always one of my favorite.
The photo above is indeed real. It occurred just south of the Canada border in North Dakota. Unreal how the buck managed to sheer the other's entire neck, however it was not locked up in what is the "typical" locked up position, which probably gave him the ability to feed a little and gave him some leverage to work on the other deer.
I've only seen one knock 'em out fight, but all kinds of sparring. I think in most instances the bucks establish a hierarchy pretty early on and there's the playground bullying and teen skirmishes here and there, but the bulk of the heavy stuff happens when a new buck comes into an established area. -JMO.
Looks like Old Country Buffet for bucks. Why he's got two flavors of salt, beats, corn, grain, and if that don't fill him up looks like he's got a little jerky necklace going there.
One of my buddies took this video in our urban honeyhole. Apologies for his language. The fight carried on for a while.
I've seen some fights and interesting activity in that area. The best one for me was a really big buck was locked on a hot doe and there was a forkhorn circling around them.
I was trying to stalk in on them from the East and the big buck busted me. He ran to the West about a hundred yards, cut to the South about fifty yards, slipping around a fence and ran back East to monitor the situation and his doe. I waited, tucked up against a tree.
The forkhorn mounted that doe and went to town. The big buck went rigid, paced momentarily on the other side of the fence and then, from a dead standstill, jumped over that eight foot fence, clearing it completely and charged that forkhorn like a freight train. The little buck put on the afterburners and ran out of sight a quarter mile after the big buck stopped.
That's the only time I've seen a doe bred. I'm not normally a guy that anthropomorphizes, but I can't help but attribute a whole series of thoughts and statements to that big buck.
From what I've been able to research , it's not at all uncommon for coyotes or other predators to eat away at the dead deer until the carcass is mostly consumed and the survivor is able to manage what's left. Must have been pretty much a nightmare.
lame crowndip... I was going to mention exactly what you said but couldn't remember where I read it or heard about it. I know I seen a video somewhere watching coyotes eat the dead dear and leave the live one alone.
Hoot - Here's the picture he snapped when he almost got run over when the fight broke up. He snapped it as he was trying to jump out of the way. I think the tongue hanging out is perfect.
