A big part of deer management is maintaining promising bucks in healthy condition until they are mature and ready for harvest, so there is nothing worse than finding a dead buck that you did not shoot, but how would you feel if you found not one, but three dead bucks on your property? Okay, it gets worse. What if those three bucks totaled 450 inches of antler?
That is exactly what a hunter in the mid-West found on his Ohio farm while walking through the woods. Apparently, two bucks were fighting for the right to breed area deer when a third buck jumped in to kick both of their butts. That didn’t happen.
The three whitetail bucks were found dead, drowned in a creek on the Ohio property. This is not the first time three bucks have locked horns and died, but it’s the first I’ve heard about this phenomenon year. And the quality of the bucks involved is impressive, so you know the guys hunting this property had to have been more than a bit deflated. I know that I would have been sick to my stomach. Here is what a staff member of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources wrote after being called out on the 3 dead bucks:
“Wow, 3 bucks locked together, wow! Wish I could have walked up them alive. This is the result of three bucks all fighting for one lady. They had the bank of this creek all tore up. All together, I estimated the deer to score well over 400 inches of antler. The biggest one was a massive 6×5, approximately 165 inches. The other two were around 130 to 140.”
The bucks were all green scored and the 9 point went 130-ish, the 10 point went 140-ish, and the big 11 point went 169 inches. It looks like the young guns will get to do the breeding on that Ohio property this year. That is why it’s important for anyone serious about deer management to keep quality bucks of all ages on a property at all times. Simply amazing!
Just goes to show how stupid “canned” deer are. You’ll never see that in nature.
Canned Deer??? Sorry Ben, not this bunch. These are wild and you are looking at Nature at her worst. The neighbor has been hunting the 6×5 for a couple of years and even has sheds from it. Heartbreaking.
Uh, Ben… it does not say the bucks were found dead in a high-fence. I believe it was low-fence as it was referred to as a farm. ALL bucks have hormones and can act “stupid”, even in… um… “nature.”
Yea Ben, these deer were trained to lock horns and drowned. That’s how they do it with the farm raised deer. LOL, nice comment
I just want to say that if these deer were in a fence in Ohio, then I don’t believe the warden would have anything to do with it. I think it is a shame these Ohio brutes fought to the death, but yet a great thing they were found to be displayed.
I recently received a detailed article about this story from the game warden. They apparently had to cut the heads off two of the bucks to get the deer out of the water and preserve the integrity of the locked antlers. The bucks weighed over 200 lbs each. It was a rare and unfortunate incident for the bucks… but what a great story that you never hear about and if the farmer got the bucks full-body mounted, that would be an awesome showcase. I have a feeling he’s had numerous high-dollar offers for the locked racks by some big names.
Well.. this is what evolution is all about. While you are worried about your hunting trips, evolution is moving on its path, and these 3 bucks are out of the game. Hopefully for them and for you, they have left enough descendants around!
Is this in Clear Creek by chance?
This is amazing! Wish someone had caught the action on video just to see how the action went down and these bucks got locked.
K.Bach, I agree that it would have been interesting to have seen this 3-way battle. Two locked bucks seems plausible, but always amazed when a third jumps in. Which of the original two bucks is he fighting or is it both???