Desert Cactus Buck and one from Idaho too

[Salmonstalker]

That is a very cool deer! I killed one in Montana a few years ago, on Thanks giving. He was a beautiful 4-pt, 24 wide and equally tall- in velvet as well. BY FAR the biggest bodied deer I've taken, and his coat was a little off colored- kind of a pale tan color. He did have a nut sack but his testies were very small, probably comparable to a kidney bean. Blue Tongue had wiped out the whitetails the spring before and though it doesn't kill Mule Deer, (allegedly) it affects them in this way from time to time....?  That's what a local news paper claimed when they ran an article on the topic. A local butcher typically sees 1/2 dozen or so per year. That particular year, they had seen somewhere around 40.... Maybe some of you guys might know more? On the same topic, I had the opportunity to hunt Kodiak with my dad and brother in 2014 where we saw several cactus bucks in only three days of hunting, the guy we went with ended up killing one- I've heard they're pretty common there. What's the science on that one?

[DeerThug]

  it is at the taxidermy and all is well but dont have it back   Just about out of wall space - guess i need to start missing a little more.

And i did read that blue tongue in mulies does not necessarily kill them like whitetails but it does/can render the bucks sterile where they do not produce testosterone and can become a cactus buck mid life and they don't recover.  this one was total bare.

I did shoot a whitetail a couple of years ago that was - i think a blue tongue survivor.  His rack was normal size up about half way then shrank to like pencils to the points.   Like he was healthy most of the way through summer then got sick.  Was skinny and no fat at all.  Otherwise in ok shape but his tongue did have blisters still on it.

 I was in on packing another one out a few years ago a wide main frame 3 point and he was castrated from an injury of some sort  all healed up but nothing working.   It was just outside of othello east of the coug barn on the last day of the season.