Killing an 18-point deer is a huge accomplishment in its own right, but finding out that the antlers are resting on top of a doe’s head make it that much more special.
Kelly Moore, a hunter in Missouri, is considering himself pretty lucky after be bagged and tagged what could be a record-breaking doe.
He wasn’t planning on hunting so early in the season, though his mind was changed when a trail camera he had set up kept capturing a deer with massive antlers.
Moore told Fox Weather:
“I never go out that early because of the heat and how fast you have to be on top of recovering and processing it because it’ll spoil so much faster.
I told myself when I went out there that I’m not going to shoot anything unless it’s special because of the heat of the day.”
And that something special eventually walked within his sight, and his range, and Moore felt as though he had no choice but to take a shot with his crossbow.
Though it was his first hunt of the year, and the first hunt ever with his crossbow, the Missouri hunter had no problem dropping the 18-pointer. With the heat, Moore knew he needed to get the deer out of the woods fast, so he didn’t check anything until he got the animal back to his home.
Once he did get back, he and his friends quickly realized that the “big buck” was missing some parts, and they started to think that it might actually be the rare antlered doe.
The Missouri Department of Conservation eventually verified that it was, in fact, an antlered doe. The chances of a doe growing antlers is 1-in-10,000, and the odds have bringing one down have to be even more rare.
When a doe does manage to grow antlers, it will rarely shed its antlers or the velvet that grows on them, which explains why this doe’s rack was so large (and misshaped).
Moore told his local news station:
“I’m going to take it to the taxidermist and try to get the ball rolling on that because there’s special care needed for the velvet on the antlers.
Hoping to be contacted by somebody to put it in a museum, or maybe a Bass Pro Shop, or something like that. It’s gonna hang on the wall somewhere, even if it’s in my house.”
Hang it in the Louvre…
The rare doe definitely deserves to be recognized, especially since it has a chance to set a record. There is a 60-day process with the doe (preserving the antlers) before it can officially be scored, though Moore believes it already has a chance to be one of the largest antlered doe to ever be recorded:
“It’s definitely a record. I don’t know that it’s going to be number one. A friend of mine came over and got a rough score on it of 157 7/8, and believes that it’s going to be like the third largest in the world.”
You can view the news story that was focused on the rare Missouri doe below:
