I was fortunate enough to have been living within five miles of where the World Record Lovstuen Buck was shot in late September 2003.  Therefore, I became the designated writer for the story of this fascinating buck and the three year quest that led to the fateful shot by Tony Lovstuen.  There was so much material to work with that I even wrote a buck about it.

Taking a look back on that deer now, there were several remarkable aspects that are worth mentioning.  They had that deer very well patterned using trail cameras.  In fact, we even have a trail camera video clip of the buck flaring from a flash camera in Episode 5 if you want to see what this buck looked like alive.

However, given all the interesting aspects of this buck, I think the most interesting is the way the buck jumped at least 100 gross inches from 2002 to 2003!  From roughly 240 inches to 340 inches!!  Think about that 340 gross inches in the wild!  The buck was already super mature.  He was likely 8 or 9 years old at that time based on the sheer number of big sets of antlers that had already been found from the buck. 

I have a picture above of the buck on the hoof in the summer of 2002 and another one below from the summer of 2003.  It barely even looks like the same deer he grew so much.  The reason his right antler is black in 2002 is because apparently broke it when in velvet that summer and the blood supply shut down to it.  I have other photos (also above) of the buck earlier in 2002 with a perfectly healthy set of antlers).

I have also included a picture of the buck's jawbone.  It is a bit blurry, but you might be able to make out the wear pattern.  Several biologists I spoke with said that once a buck gets past 6 of 7 it is hard to age him accurately by any method.  I'm not sure if a tooth was ever sent into the lab for ring analysis.  I don't think it was.  So we are simply guessing at this buck's age based on the number of big sets of antlers that had been found (three) before he was shot in 2003.

Most people think a buck grows his biggest set of antlers at age 5 or 6.  Maybe some do, but some also blow up huge after they are already super mature.  I have heard of several of these and likely there would be many others but it is a rare buck that actually lives that long even in areas with light hunting pressure.  Natural causes and vehicles take out many bucks each year that hunters never touch. 

In tomorrow's blog I'm going to get into the reason this probably happens with some bucks and give you an example of a buck that I hunted last year that was the product of late blooming antlers.  So check back tomorrow.