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Title: Moby Deer: Hunter's obsessive, three-year pursuit of huge buck pays off (350 lbs!!!)
Source:
Twin Cities.com Pioneer Press
URL Source: http://www.twincities.com/ci_13535184?source=email&nclick_check=1#
Published: Oct 14, 2009
Author: Chris Niskanen
Post Date: 2009-10-21 23:44:03 by X-15
Keywords: None
Views: 133
Comments: 5
Some people are obsessed with deer hunting. Michael Versland of Hastings was obsessed with a single buck. Starting in 2007, after finding some enormous shed antlers, Versland began pursuing with bow and arrow a giant whitetail buck roaming the woods of southeastern Washington County. The high school biology teacher saw the buck twice in 2007 and once in 2008 but never got a good shot. Over three years, he was able to collect all or some of its shed antlers going back to 2005. He collected a handful of pictures of the deer from his trail camera. This year, Versland, 33, bought and practiced with a new, fully outfitted $1,700 bow and arrows, hoping that if buck came by, he would make the perfect shot using the best equipment. "It was quite an obsession," he said. "As soon as I picked up his first antler, I knew I wasn't going to shoot anything else." On Oct. 2, about 7 p.m., his patience paid off. The buck came within range and Versland hit it perfectly, eventually recovering the buck just 40 yards from his deer stand. The buck is a 10-pointer with four nontypical points. The antlers' gross "green" score (before it dries) is 210 1/8 gross inches on the Boone and Crockett scale. The antlers have a width of 22 1/4 inches. Perhaps most impressive is its weight. Its live weight on a taxidermy scale was 350 pounds, extremely rare and heavy for a whitetail, experts say. Versland estimates the field-dressed weight is about 280 pounds. He plans to have a full-body mount of the buck. "This will be my 21st year working deer check stations, and the biggest deer I've ever seen is 247 pounds, and that was a buck down in Illinois," said Lou Cornicelli, big-game program coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. "That weight is definitely outside the bell curve." The antlers on Versland's buck are far from being a state record. They qualify for the official archery record book, Pope and Young, which has a minimum 155 score for nontypical whitetail antlers. Chances are the antlers will rank high among state archery-killed deer. Versland's buck is unique for the effort he put into hunting it. In March 2007, he found one side of the buck's shed antlers from fall 2006. On another trip, one of his students found another shed from the 2005 season, and a farmer later found the matching side from 2006. Versland found a single shed in 2007 from the same buck and the matching set of antlers from 2008. "The six antlers were found on five different properties over the course of four years,'' he said. "From one end to the next, (the properties) covered a full mile." He took the sheds to antler competitions and won first place with them. In 2008, he captured six photos of the big buck on his trail camera. He also got the buck on video in 2008 and the night he shot him. "He was largely nocturnal," Versland said. "Most people in the area did not know he was there. And I seldom saw him even when hunting his core bedding area." Versland was hunting Wednesday, Sept. 30, of this year when he spotted the buck on nearby private property. He got permission to hunt the property on Thursday, bought a new stand that night and erected it on Friday, the day he shot the buck. Despite getting his dream deer, Versland said he would continue hunting in Minnesota and Wisconsin this fall. "I learned so much from (this buck) that I believe I can go out this year in Wisconsin or next year in Minnesota and take another great buck — not this big, of course," he said. Once the mount of the deer is complete, Versland hopes to display it at deer shows.
Poster Comment: He's got several months of meat from that one buck. Backstraps, steaks, ground, etc., mmmm!!!!! Notice that none of the area landowners had any idea that the buck was around, that's how the smarter ones survive to get old and big. Notice also that the buck was in about a 1 mile area for most of it's life, a proven statistic of their habits.
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#1. To: X-15 (#0)
I've known a few hunters with such tenacity. This one has a happy ending, often the tenacity leads to wonderful stories of the one that got away or the one that somebody else got to first. I admire bow hunters with such skill and patience. Thanks for posting this article X-15. Reminds me of home.............
doesn't that mean he's not going to eat it?
No, he'll eat it. The Taxidermist will pull the hide off the buck, and put it on a maquette body, that's made of heavy foam. They're called Taxidermy mounts.
Better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not.
A full-body mount means that only the hide/antlers are removed from the carcass and applied to a ready-made "form". Example at link:
_________________________________________________________________________ oh! ;)
#2. To: X-15 (#0)
He plans to have a full-body mount of the buck.
#3. To: christine (#2)
#4. To: christine (#2)
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?”
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#5. To: TommyTheMadArtist, X-15 (#3)
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