I spent a lot of time in my stands the last rifle season and did not even see a deer. Most of my stands are up on the ridge tops and with the windy days I guess the deer were avoiding them. A friend was hunting a valley not far from where I was and reported seeing numerous deer each day. In the afternoon o the last day I could hunt I decided to still hunt the valley on the other side of my stands. I saw lots of sign but no deer. As I was walking out I saw an antler sticking out of the leaves and assumed that it was a drop from last year. When I pulled it out it was a complete skull with both of the antlers still connected. It was an eight pointer but what an eight pointer. The antlers were a perfect matched on both sides and massive and wide. The tines were long and heavy. In short this had been one heck of a deer. It made all the other deer I had shot over the years look like 'little boys'. There were only a few gnaw marks on the antlers and they are being made into a nice European mount. I don't know what did the old boy in but the complete skeleton was only about thirty feet or so back in the woods from a well known road crossing point. Real nice deer but not much meat on the bones.
Like the horns but no matter how long you cook them they don't taste very good.
RJ
