Big buck qualifies as the Colossus of Kelloggsville
An enormous deer was part of small-town lore, it just may not be this monster.
Friday, December 10, 2004
By J. Michael Kelly
Staff writer
The "Kelloggsville buck," a whopper of a whitetail seen by dozens of incredulous Cayuga County residents and passersby since the summer of 2002, is now part of deer-hunting history.
Or maybe not.
What's certain is that retired dairy farmer Wally Jayne shot a deer with spectacular, spreading antlers in one of his family's hay fields a few minutes before sunset on Nov. 28.
The 12-point buck is believed to have the biggest set of antlers ever bagged by a hunter in Cayuga County. Although it has yet to be officially scored, the rack's tall, symmetrical tines and the 251/4-inch inside spread between its left and right beams may well land it on the roster of trophy whitetails kept by the prestigious Boone & Crockett Club.
"Hunters joke around about whether they'd rather be good or lucky," said Jayne, 69. "This time I was good and lucky."
Jayne assumed the buck was the same animal he had photographed at long distance several times during the previous three years - until its carcass was inspected by Department of Environmental Conservation experts.
Two DEC fish and wildlife technicians and a state wildlife biologist who independently calculated the buck's age at the Tompkins-Cayuga Cooperative Hunting Area in King Ferry all declared it to be 31/2 years old.
Because a deer normally has significantly larger antlers at age 31/2 than it did when it was 11/2 or 21/2, the DEC workers doubt the dead buck and the huge deer seen feeding in Kelloggsville fields three years ago are the same animal.
If they're correct, the look-alike father or older brother of Jayne's trophy could still be out there.
"A lot of us think we've been watching this same deer for three years, but the biologists disagree," Jayne said.
DEC technician Wayne Masters, the first state employee to see Jayne's deer close-up, said there is "absolutely no question" of its age.
Experts determine how old a deer is by observing the degree of wear on its teeth.
A 31/2-year-old deer killed during the October-December hunting season invariably has a dark dentine line on the grinding surfaces of its first and second molars that's wider than the adjacent bands of enamel. When that same deer is 41/2 years old,
the lingual or forward crest on its first molar will be almost completely worn away, and the top of the same tooth will be within 5 to 6 millimeters of the outer gum.
Masters has been aging deer dentures for 25 years.
Jayne said the big buck - or bucks - had a habit of feeding in soybean and alfalfa fields along a two-mile stretch of Old Salt Road in the town of Niles. Sightings became so common that locals who waited at likely vantage points on summer evenings were sometimes able to take fuzzy, long-range photos of the wide-antlered deer.
"It caused quite a stir around here," said Jayne. "I named it the Kelloggsville buck because it was such a local celebrity."
Jayne figures "at least 200" hunters were aware of the animal, but until this year, no one he knew of had spotted it during the hunting season.
"The deer would always go nocturnal in September," he said. "I assumed he was pretty much unhuntable."
Just in case, however, Jayne and his sons Jeff, Jack and Stephen and his son-in-law Derek Coningsby gave themselves every opportunity to tag the big boy by adopting Quality Deer Management practices on the farm, which has been in the Jayne family since 1790. Practicioners of QDM pass up shots at young bucks in order to see more older, bigger bucks in future hunting seasons.
"For several years, we've had a rule that a deer has to have antlers wider than its ears before you can shoot it," Jayne explained.
His trophy met the criteria with five or six inches to spare on each side.
Jayne was just about done hunting for the day when he had his fateful encounter. He had even emptied his 20-gauge, Remington Model 870 shotgun.
"I was riding a four-wheeler toward the farm house, when I looked out at the corn field and saw this nice buck," he recalled. "I got off the four-wheeler, didn't even turn the engine off, and re-loaded my gun."
His son-in-law, Coningsby, was riding a tractor at the far end of the corn. In retrospect, Jayne thinks the deer might not have noticed the idling four-wheeler because it was distracted by the louder tractor.
A narrow hedge row separated the corn from the hay field where Jayne had parked. He tiptoed uphill along the hedge, hoping to get closer to the deer. The buck obliged him by loping into the hay and stopping about 60 yards away.
After Jayne shot, the whitetail ran from left to right across the hay and then staggered. Jayne fired again and the deer fell.
Instead of hurrying to the deer, he calmly walked back to his four-wheeler, knowing he would need it to drag the animal home.
"I knew all along it was a nice buck, but it was only when I drove up to it that I realized it must be the one I'd seen all summer," he said.
Word spread quickly on the rural grapevine. That evening and the following day, Jayne guesses, he and his wife Jane welcomed at least 125 curious neighbors and hunters who wanted to see the deer.
Taxidermist Jon Van Nest of Moravia, who will do a trophy mount of Jayne's deer, estimated it will have a net score of between 170 and 175 inches under the Boone & Crockett scoring system.
The minimum qualifying score for a buck with a typical antler configuration is 170.
Whether it makes Boone & Crockett or not, the Jayne deer is a shoo-in for the New York State Big Buck Club, which takes gun-killed typical bucks that score 140 or better.
Merritt Compton of Trumansburg, a certified scorer with the Big Buck Club, said Wednesday he intends to measure the Kelloggsville monster some time next week.
© 2004 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.
