Had an interesting find last weekend - I was fooling around on one of the farms I hunt and spotted a couple of tines sticking up out of the leaves. I grabbed the antler and it turned out to be a dandy...but an old one. The ends of the tines were chewed by rabbits, but most of the antler was buried under leaves and is in good shape. The horn looked pretty familiar so when I got home I compared it with the buck I killed last December....pretty compelling comparison. The part that floors me is that I had this deer pegged as a 3 1/2 yr old, 4 1/2 at best. He wasn't real big for my area at 205 live wt, and didn't have a long nose/eye measurement. The shed, while being at least 1 yr and maybe 2 yrs old is from at least a 4 1/2 yr old buck from the mass.
I sent some pictures to my father and he believes it is the same deer...he's usually pretty good at that. Maybe my buck had a hard year and lost some mass - perhaps that is why the left antler ended up goofy. The teeth are sent in for aging so it will be interesting to see......the shed was about 500 yards from where I killed the deer.
Here he is July 7, 2010:
I like this one better - December 20, 2010:
Here's a comparison - note the tine angles, beam curvature, and nub 5th point - the tips of the tines are chewed off a bit.