I don't get the Axle story. You call it a "bench-leg" but then describe it as a bench with the legs half cut off. So then they don't look like a "bench leg" at all.
In my circles a "Bench leg" is an exceptionally heavy horned and heavy bodied buck from the western slopes of the Cascades. These deer are said to inhabit the steeper higher country and to migrate like mule deer. Its basically a large blacktail that looks and behaves a lot like a mule deer. Some claim they are half breed muley/blacktail.
I believe the "bench-leg" term is a sort of one word description for the boast that the deer have shorter legs on one side due to standing on very steep side hills all their lives. They live on the benches on the western slopes of the Cascades.
Its a term used similar to "fork and a frying pan" is used to indicate very steep and rugged country. Every one knows what it means, but no one is ever going to pack a fork and frying pan down in there to eat their kill rather than pack it out.
The only short legged deer I've seen were Sitka Blacktails. They also tend to be small in stature.
Just to throw another stick in the spokes. In my circles "Pacific fork" describes those big old heavy forked horn bucks that never seem to grow anything but large heavy forks. They don't branch into 3's or 4's. I've seen mule deer that are similar in either forks or 3x3's....Don't have a name for them though. I've often heard folks proclaim these deer as having "regressed" in their old age, as if to say they were a 3 or 4 in their younger years.
