Big Buck Display

Legend of Lazarus Tops All in Deer Contest: Heidelberg Township Hunter Brings in a Buck of Legendary Proportions to Win

By Christian Berg, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Feb. 6--Second of two parts

Lynn Lazarus Sr. knows a thing or two about whitetails.

For starters, he's been hunting them for 40 years. And if that weren't enough, he's been butchering them for 24 years at Lazarus Farm Market, his family's business in Whitehall.

"One year, I did 800," said Lazarus, who estimates he has processed 10,000 deer since 1982.

Given his wealth of experience with deer, Lazarus isn't easily impressed by a trophy animal. But the buck he spotted Nov. 10 while bowhunting on his family's Whitehall property took his breath away.

"I've been bowhunting since the mid-to-late '60s, and I never even saw a deer spotlighting as big as this one," Lazarus said.

Lazarus, 54, of Heidelberg Township, rose at 4:30 that morning and headed to a treestand on the edge of a cornfield. When he arrived, he placed a vial of fresh doe-in-heat urine about 10 feet from his tree and climbed into his stand.

Shortly after sunrise, Lazarus saw a spike buck. Not long after that, he spotted a much larger buck chasing a doe about 75 yards away. As soon the buck appeared, Lazarus knew it was the "big one" he and other members of his family had been chasing the past several years. Its rack appeared to be about two-feet wide, and there were kicker and sticker points coming out in all directions.

"I saw him for about 15 minutes, and it gave me time to calm down," said Lazarus, who was hunting with a Barnett crossbow.

Eventually, the doe left the area and the buck disappeared into the corn, only to emerge a few minutes later. It was 6:40 a.m., and the buck was just 30 yards from Lazarus' stand and headed in his direction.

"My heart began to race," Lazarus said. "I burped to stop him at 12 yards, but he just kept walking. I released the arrow, and he dropped in his tracks."

Lazarus said his buck, which had 16 scoreable points and an outside spread of 261/2 inches, had become legendary in his family. His 27-year-old son, Calvin, hunting in a treestand about 100 yards away, had found shed antlers that indicated the buck sported a 12-point rack in 2004 and a 14-point rack in 2005. Based on his examination of the buck's jaws and rotted teeth, Lazarus estimated the age of the deer at 61/2 years.

Because of the tremendous size of his buck, and the story that surrounds it, Lazarus was chosen as the first-place winner in the men's category of The Morning Call Deer of the Year Contest. Lazarus will receive a free Scent Blocker camouflage suit, courtesy of Archery at the Glenn in Allentown.

After celebrating his success, Lazarus and his son loaded the buck into the back of Calvin's vehicle and drove to Lazarus Farm Market.

"The head was sticking out of the back of my son's vehicle when we brought it here, and people were literally pulling off the road," Lazarus said. "They must have taken 200 pictures of this deer in an hour's time. It was like a circus. There were people all over the place."

Once the hubbub died down, Lazarus gutted the buck and placed it on the shop's certified scale, which delivered a reading of 2001/2 pounds. Lazarus, who stands 6-1, noted that's his weight, too.

"He didn't have an ounce of fat on his body, so he must have been rutting two months already," Lazarus said. "Usually, they don't look like that until December."

Later, Lazarus took the buck's hide and rack to his friend Bob Danenhower, owner of Bob's Wildlife Taxidermy in Orefield. Danenhower had provided the doe urine Lazarus used during his hunt and was thrilled to see the buck it had lured within shooting range.

Danenhower said Lazarus' deer was the largest Pennsylvania buck brought into his shop last year. It received a Buckmasters composite score (which is comparable to Boone and Crockett) of 1871/8. Of the thousands of bucks he has processed at his shop, Lazarus said only two others ever sported racks in excess of 180 inches.

"I'll tell you what. I honestly never cut up a deer with a rack bigger than that one," said Lazarus, who is having a shoulder mount done. "This one is going right in my living room, so I can see him every day."

Danenhower said Lazarus' buck has seven scoreable points on the left antler and nine on the right, with an inside spread of 21 3/8 inches. The main beams measure 247/8 inches on the left and 25 5/8 inches on the right. The circumferences of antler bases are 5 7/8 inches on the left and 5 6/8 inches on the right.