I found this buck yesterday, near one of the trails that I maintain for the land trust where I work.

Sorry that the picture may seem kind of gross to some...as you might imagine, my nose helped me find the animal. What intrigues me is that I've had many, many thoughts since finding it; I even dreamed about it last night.

Just wondering what others imagine, think or feel when they see something like this?

He was curled up against a vertical ledge, only about 15' from the edge of a trail, but only the tip of one antler could be seen from the trail.

The place I work is an island, about ten miles long and four wide, and it gets a lot of hunting pressure. There are no coyotes there, so the carcass has stayed intact. Turkey vultures will certainly find it soon, and I'm a bit surprised that the bald eagles didn't find it this winter. But his last hiding place was a good one.

I first saw this buck three years ago, and had probably jumped him on five different occasions, always within a couple hundred yards of this spot. I never hunted him; I would just cross paths with him in the line of my work. But anyway there was an admiring connection on my part, and my first thoughts on finding him were sad ones.

The thought that finally cheered me up a bit was that he was a lot like the Indian chief Graylock--the English hunted him from one end of New England to the other, and would have gladly displayed his head, but they could never catch him, and he died of old age.

Whether this buck died of a bullet wound or starvation, no one ever caught him either...and he died with his head up.

cycle of life.

found a lot that way.

makes you wonder what happened

Nice Euro Mount.

must not be many coyotes in your area or the buck had been under water for some time. around here the yotes would have had it scattered for 50- yards before it would have gotten to that condition.

Eddie, you're right; my second post came in after yours 'cause I got long-winded!

On the nainland coast of Maine there are plenty of coyotes, but this particular island doesn't have any. It is striking and unusual to find one that's still all together like this.

Some guys are too lazy to track, that's what comes to mind..but then again, sometimes its not possible to track a wounded animal.. Shoot straight..

This buck's home area was some very rough ground--it was the site of a big forest fire in the 1930's, and it has grown back in to many acres of 4' tall huckleberries, wild raisin, pin cherry, and occasional groves of stunted white spruce. Incredibly hard stuff to walk through, but also almost impossible to find a downed deer out in the middle of it..you'd almost have to step on him.

A buck with a fully grown hardened rack in May? what time of year did you find this deer? It can't be may, they don't loose their velvet in April.

He died this past winter; I found him yesterday.

I've found two bucks (different times and places) that seemed to be in fine health except for being freshly dead. No marks on either one. It was during the rut and I figured they broke their necks fighting. Both were in fairly open woods.

Deer do die of natural causes.

My first thought is that the deer died of natural causes. Any animal living in the wild has a tough row to hoe. It can be brutal. IMHO I don't think he died of "old age" because his rack seems to be robust. I really thing the big boy contracted a disease which did him in. With most really older deer that die of "old age" tend to have antlers which begin a downward trajectory as they age.

It would be interesting to look at his teeth, most likely a winter kill or old age and he died watching his back trail. He probably thought that he'd just nap for a few minutes and then check it again.

What comes to my mind is humility. It reminds me that in this age of great self importance, where every fart has to be documented with a selfie, all people, places and things (including proud bucks) will pass. It's good to be reminded of that every so often. Thanks.

X2 with David-check his jaw teeth.Its an interesting find.

I found this buck in a "chimney sink" where he fell in and died a slow death no doubt.The coyotes had eroded the sinkhole edges going in and out.

Makes me think about how tough of a life it is living outdoors with no roof or kitchen. Its why I respect all animals like I do. And why I disrespect those who don't respect.

We can guess till the cows come home. Could be something as simple as a case of pneumonia brought on by who knows what. That's a good sized, old Roman nosed buck that has some age to him. As long as they stay nourished the antlers don't always go south on them. Mysteries are okay as well. We know he didn't get eaten before he had a chance to live a few years.

Right on Pearl. 100%.

A game of hide and seek gone terribly wrong?

Makes me think well maybe he was on his down side anyways and about to die from bad winter. Did you check his teeth to confirm this maybe.

Mother nature is cruel but like said cycle of life. You should have stood there a saluted him or pilled rocks up onto him giving him proper burial and said a few words over him. LOL

The other thought Kerry is you weren't good enough to get him that you didn't listen to Joe boy since Frisky tells you how to hunt does he not? LOL

Just kidding and rattling the cage that's sad when we come across animals like this. The picture does say a lot to those who understand many things.

Another thought was OMG you caught Friky in the act and he didn't get the meat he couldn't find his arrow so he couldn't find his deer he bumped and drvoe over.LOL

Pearl Drums x 4

Regardless of how he died, he Lived the good life, and something inside of me is envious of him... of all of them.

Respect is why I leave them as I found them also.

It brings to my mind the fragility of life. Lance

4noz

I found a young 4 pt. in the same situation years ago, it was in a test hole some miner had dug eons ago. We roped him and pulled him out but didn't think about how to get the ropes free when he came to the surface, he ran off with one around the antlers and a couple looped under his belly, we got the belly ropes back but not the antler rope.

oz

Life's end or shot an not found.

It may be possible (horribly stinky & disgusting) to do an autopsy. If it was shot with a firearm, there may still be evidence such as broken ribs, or possibly even the bullet still inside. Ive heard of deer who were killed, and when gutted & butchered, a broadhead was found inside.

Nature is neither cruel or gentle. Nature is nature and allows its inhabitants to thrive or not. Mitigating circumstance is part of that as well. Out of respect for nature, I would let it as it is...ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

This makes me think of the fawn I found one March. The skeleton had sunk an inch or two into the ground. The ground was absorbing it! Really neat! That's what should soon be done with RymanCat. Dump him in the woods he hunted in and let the ground absorb the remains. It's actually cheaper and better than cremation.

Joe

Very nice Mr. Stout..

Looks like he died of natural causes, old age. Just by the way he is sitting. Died in winter probably, not from hunter. Check teeth for age. What I feel is not much more than when I see a majestic tree that has fallen dead from living its life out, or a predator killed animal of any kind or gender. Just what happens, and mixed feelings that it lived out its life in full, but sad it had to end. Now if it were a road kill, I'd be sad and angry at the same time, that it ended too soon and in vain. I have found so many dead deer and elk over the years that I just see it for what it is - dead. Call me disrespectful maybe, but I have collected a lot of deadheads with some really fine racks, and a whole string of elk ivories. Even one really old grizzly skull with teeth, in Big Sky, MT. Back behind the Corral.

The best look I ever had at this one while he was alive was a couple of years ago. Back then he had an 8-point rack. He was already very cagey--he let three of us almost step right on top of him that day, before he exploded up out of the huckleberries, and ran a good 200 yards in very high bounds until he reached the cover of some spruces.

When a deer knows that trick of sitting tight in thick stuff until the last possible second, their chances of growing old get a lot better. I don't think he's any more than six or seven years old.

It was a rough winter, and that Maine climate esp. on a cold damp windy island in the Atlantic is rough. Didn't your guys get hammered again this year?

Look and see if his teeth are worn down or gone? May have starved to death.

Yes, it was a tough winter here; at least at the front end of it--two feet of snow in the woods, and something like ten days in a row of sub-zero nighttime temps starting just after Christmas. That's a tough time of year for big bucks, who have been putting in very hard miles and fighting a lot in the rut. Not only that, but there are very few oak or beech trees on the island, so no mast crop for rebuilding fat reserves after the rut. Maybe the furnace just ran out of fuel on this guy...hope it was that, and not a bullet wound. I think the sitting upright posture might support this idea.

Trapper, That's pretty country around Big Sky...also where I spent my first night alone in the tent on my big bike trip four years ago. I was a little nervous that a grizzly might find MY skull that first night! As I recall I pitched the tent within crawling distance of the Bozeman Road, just in case I got mauled in my sleep,LOL.

This photo was from just a couple miles farther along, where the road keeps crossing the Gallatin. Sure would like to get back there one of these days.

Yeah, and if they were wounded they generally seek a water source and die in or near it. I'd say he tried to find a sheltered area out of the wind (near that ledge), and hunker down during that sub zero spell and just froze to death. I found 14 dead mature bull elk all bedded together in the area south of Yellowstone Park one frigid January that obviously froze to death. Wintering elk usually die in April or into May out there on a normal winter, from starvation. These ones froze. I bet your theory holds up - no fat, no food, and too colds for too long. Like Pearl said, no roof or wood stove makes for a tough life. But to me it does not make me think on it much. I've seen that a whole lot. On another note, one year I when lived on the Bighorn, in '87, there was an epidemic of blue tongue disease in August and I found probably 15 or more dead whitetail deer, most every one a buck just before shedding its velvet, dead in fields and along the river bottoms near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers. That was a real tough year on the population, and you think that one you found stunk??? Whew.. Summer killed bucks. Gag...

Nope I am getting dumped 100 miles offshore Joe.LOL

Why take his rack what good does it do. People you see cut off racks on road kills and just leave carcass.

Now that's lame plus all this is illegal unless your putting your tag or paying state for rack. Just another issue one gets caught up in they deal with another day.

Mother nature sucks she's the witch of the North. She takes game off the killer. She wants to kill before someone gets it before her that makes her a B. LOL

We own the animals it is scriptural that we rain over them. Now I didn't say Lord over them that would be to prideful then I would have to get another decease to kept the one I have company. LOL I feed them and care for them and then should be able to shoot them before the mother takes them.LOL

Maybe the poor deer got bird flu? Who knows maybe I have it? Stranger things have happened.

One of my bucks got hit by a car I said screw it I'm not even going to look I know which one behind my house. Ashs to ashs and bucks to dust. Lord wants me to shoot a bigger one he will bring him by. He did not this past season because I turned one down others would have taken because of pride and greed I wanted bigger and he was a shooter just no score.

Its all has a place in the grasshoppers learning you know. And lesions when they come to my bush come hard and fast.LOL

Kerry, that picture was taken up near Taylor Fork on the Gallatin. A few miles past where I found that skull off 191. There used to be a bar on the other side of the road right near there... ;^) Were you in it?

Looking at the way his front legs are forward and his head resting makes me think he had a struggle during the cold winter.As most here have already said just shows the Brutal force of Nature! Only our Creator God himself knows and that settle's it for me.

Cat, I see you're back to your old self.. LOL! must be that infusion worked out good for you eh? Hope so!

Kerry, just curious, what island are you working on? I've spent a lot of time on the Maine coast over the years. In fact one of my father's oldest friends was Carl Hardy, born and raised on Great Cranberry island off Mount Desert. Any relation?

Paul, I work on Vinalhaven; and yes, Carl Hardy was a fairly close relative...I never met him, but remember my grandfather coming back from some family get-together back in the 70's and reporting that "Carl's gotten as fat's a porpoise!"

I would guess that the Vinalhaven deer herd is close to a 20 deer/sq. mi. density, maybe even higher. Vegetable and flower gardens are in great peril; high tick populations, and very poor survival of young hardwood trees due to browsing. Hunters tag around 125 deer most seasons, and I suspect that half that number might go untagged as well. Because of the deer density along the coast and islands, the archery season starts in early September and runs all fall...so lot of archers show up around Labor Day, and I'm always finding tree stands placed on our preserves (where hunting is allowed, btw).

The local traditon is to take the butchered carcasses and dump them on this big salt marsh a couple of miles out of town, where the crows, ravens, gulls, and bald eagles can complete the meat processing.

Unless there was a lot of snow I don't think he would have intentionally laid down on that rock and deer don't lay with their legs out right . I think he was killed .

All due respect, George, Ma Nature can be a cruel mistress.

I found this one about 100 yards from my house in late December at the start of an easy winter. We've got a LOT of coyotes, and wolves are drifting in, albeit still few in number...for now.

Thia was far from any major roads, and no firearm hunting is allowed...it's a 450 acre rural sub division with lots 2.5 to 3.5 acres.

The carcass was dragged or crawled 20 yards from the sight of my first find of a 10 foot circle of hair. I've no idea whether he was injured, already dead, or done in by predators.

But, nature wastes nothing. Interestingly enough, the next summer I caught the whiff of a "dead" one evening, and followed my nose to a mature doe in the same vicinity and nearing the same condition.

I dunno...

My house from the site.

The kill (?) site, with a fairly large scat sample.

Post like this make this a great site , thanks for sharing.

That old deer led a good life and died with his boots on. Just fell to sleep for his last time while thinking he'd see his good ole buddies and family up there.

A lot of city folk and anti-hunters should see that. A good dose of reality is good for some people. Being taken by a hunter is much less stressful and hard than the natural world.

Makes me think of wasted tenderloin

I'm in with those who say the position of the forelegs doesn't look like he was just bedded down there.

Position of the hind legs could be telling... Tucked under would say bedded; stretched out behind might suggest a broken back and he just managed to crawl back in there on forelegs alone.

Fine buck. I can understand wanting to leave him as found, or I can understand wanting to take the rack home and admire it from time to time, just to remember the old cuss and admire what he pulled off in living as long as he did.

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