WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2007 Last modified: Friday, November 2, 2007 4:55 PM CDT
Mason County Man’s Trophy 4x4 Blacktail Comes With Bonus 3x4
NOV. 2, 2007—Rick Hayes has shot a lot of blacktail bucks in the woods near his Mason County home over the past 30 years, but none that ever came with a second one attached to it — until this year.
“They’re both very nice bucks, trophy bucks,” says Hayes, the director of maintenance for the Pioneer School District.
One, a 4x4, has a hole in it from his .44 Winchester; the other, a 3x4, absolutely cannot be untangled from the first’s rack.
“There’s no unhooking them, they’re locked together good,” Hayes says.
The bucks apparently fought each other for several hours until the 3x4 died. Then Hayes shot the 4x4 after work Oct. 25, off his mile-long driveway northeast of Shelton.
He says that after game wardens inspected the animals, they advised him to put a relative’s tag on the other buck.
Hayes’ unusual harvest is spreading like wildfire. He’s been carrying a pocket full of photos to answer folks’ questions, and he says that his son-in-law, while hunting last weekend near Puyallup, was told by another hunter about a pair of Mason County bucks that got hung up — his.
We’ll have more of Hayes’ story and photos in our Nov. 22 issue!
RARE SITUATION: While tangled deer are very rare, our Dec. 4, 2003, issue includes a photo of Greg Parsons’ “two-headed buck,” a northeast Washington 4x4 whitetail that had the head, rack and part of the skin of a 5x4 hanging off of it. One of the 5x4’s points was actually embedded in the 4x4’s skull. Parsons’ hunting partner, Phil Olwell of Bremerton, estimated the 5x4’s head had been hanging on the 4x4s for a couple weeks.
Officer Todd Vandivert, a WDFW game warden in Southeast Washington, says he knows of only one other similar incident. It occurred eight years ago in the Blues.
“In that incident, a hunter saw two bucks fighting, and shot one of them. After killing the deer, he found both bucks were still locked together — one dead and one very much alive,” says Vandivert. “He could not separate the two, and called us to see what he should do. He was advised to have another legally licensed hunter (with a valid tag) shoot the second deer.”
Also, the Aug. 23, 2007, issue of our Rocky Mountain edition features a pair of photos of two antelope bucks whose horns had become locked together.
“It physically took two adults to stretch their skull plates to get them apart,” says bowhunter Dale Larson of Dillon, Mont. He reports the larger of the two had died and that he tagged the other.
— Andy Walgamott
This pair of Mason County blacktail bucks locked antlers in late October, leading to the demise of both. “There’s no unhooking them, they’re locked together good,” says hunter Rick Hayes, who shot the 4x4 on the left. The other, a 3x4, had died several hours earlier. (Photo courtesy of Rick Hayes)
