Alabama buck

[O. hemionus]

I'm extremely excited and ready to move back out to the PNW in a couple months, but there's just a tiny part of me that wishes I had one last deer hunting season here in Alabama...

These pictures were taken from a trail cam I set up on a friend's property. This is the same 40-acre piece of property where I shot my buck last year. I always see crazy pictures like this on TV or on the web, but I've never gotten any of a deer like this myself, until now. I can't wait to see what he looks like in October. Ignore the time stamp on the pictures - it is set wrong, but the dates are correct.

[O. hemionus]

More...

I think at this point he has about 10 points on each side. I noticed that his 2.5-year old buddies already have about 8-10" of vertical growth, so he is lagging behind in antler height at this point. I think it took his body a while to figure out what it was supposed to do with those big rocks on top of his head that you see in the pictures from May.

[O. hemionus]

Couple more...Sorry for attaching so many photos, but it takes a ton of them to see his antlers from every angle and to figure out what exactly he has going on up there. Also, I know this is the South and deer may find salt blocks more attractive down here (maybe they don't, I don't know), but I got 4300 pictures of deer from May 17-July 30 using only a salt block. As far as I can tell, all the pictures were of 6 or 7 different deer.

[REHJWA]

I would have to consider spending some vacation time on him...Thanks or sharing.

[Don_D]

That buck is something else. Hope you get more pics, it would be neat to see how he has come along.

[Turner89]

I would have to consider spending some vacation time on him...Thanks or sharing.

I agree

[O. hemionus]

Hoping to have a chance to check the camera this weekend. We'll see if he shows up - they've been doing some timber thinning there to improve the wildlife habitat. I also noticed a sounder of hogs showed up towards the end of the camera soak - hoping they didn't push the deer out. Might have me some fresh pork here soon 

[teanawayslayer]

Very unique buck. I bet in two or three years he would really be something special!

[lokidog]

Cool!

[O. hemionus]

Went out to the property Thursday and pulled the SD card. This freaky buck finally showed back up two more times - once on the 4th and once on the 30th of September. Here's what his growth looks like now:

From 9/4

[O. hemionus]

From 9/30. I don't think he will get too much bigger than this. This deer has all sorts of junk going every which way. Wonder if he'll try to shed his velvet. All the other bucks still have velvet on, so it's still too early to tell.

[lokidog]

Cool progression of photos!  The one I got this year didn't change much from the end of June to September when he was shed.

[O. hemionus]

Yeah, that was the case for all the other bucks I had on camera here too. Most of them had the majority of their growth done by June-July. However, in Alabama, these deer sometimes hold on to their antlers until April (rut is end of January - mid February in a lot of places), so their whole antler cycle is shifted quite a bit. Don't know why this guy put so much growth on at the end though.

[jennabug]

Very interesting! I hope to see more updates on this guy.

[Pathfinder101]

In some of those pics he looks pretty old.  Roman nose.  He also looks a little skinny in some pics.  I wonder if he's a huge, old buck that has regressed?