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Copyright 2006 The Morning
Call, Inc.
Morning Call (Allentown,
Pennsylvania)
February 7,
2006 Tuesday
HEADLINE: Local hunter recovers
record-book buck more than two
months after the shot
Bowhunter Chris Scott should have
ended the evening of
Oct. 17, 2005, posing for photographs with the
biggest buck of his life.
Instead, Scott went home
empty-handed -- and broken-hearted -- after failing to recover one of the
largest, non-typical whitetails ever taken by a Pennsylvania archer.
Scott, 47, of Upper Milford
Township, left work at 4 p.m. and drove to a hunting spot in Lower Macungie
Township. He climbed 20 feet into a treestand between corn and soybean fields
and waited.
Although Scott didn't see any deer
for the first hour or so, he was excited about the hunt because he knew a
gigantic buck was roaming the
area. He had seen the 300-pound brute himself on several occasions in previous
years, and other local sportsmen who saw the
buck wondered whether its massive rack would set a new state record.
Shortly after 5:30 p.m., Scott got
his chance to answer that question. As the
buck stepped out into the field, it only took one look at the
incredibly heavy, 13-point antlers for Scott
to know this was the moment he'd been waiting for.
Scott had placed some Tink's 69
Doe-In-Rut Buck Lure near the base
of his tree, and when the animal presented a 15-yard quartering away shot, he
let an arrow fly from his Hoyt Razortec compound bow. The Easton carbon shaft,
tipped with a 100-grain, Muzzy broadhead, hit its mark, and
Scott celebrated as the big deer
bounded out of sight.
When Scott climbed down and
attempted to locate the deer, however, his happiness quickly turned to despair.
He couldn't find any blood on the ground -- making it virtually impossible to
determine where the buck had gone.
Several hours of searching proved fruitless, as did subsequent searches in the
days that followed. He spent dozens of hours combing the property where he hunts
and several other areas but discovered nothing more than a few specks of blood
alongside of a nearby road.
"He was pretty sick," said Scott's
brother, Tim, who aided in the search.
After spending five days looking for the buck
and coming up empty, Scott figured
he simply wasn't going to find it. On Oct. 22, he went hunting at another
location near his home and took a 6-point
buck.
"I wanted the season over," Scott
said.
But even after putting his tag on that 6-pointer, the trophy
buck's image lingered in
Scott's mind. He just couldn't
believe such a magnificent animal had vanished into thin air. So, he resumed his
search.
"I was hoping I could at least know if I killed it or not,"
Scott said. "That's what was
bothering me most of all."
Despite his renewed efforts, the buck's
fate remained a mystery until after Christmas. That's when a friend told
Scott about an exceptionally-large
deer discovered by a hunter on a nearby property.
"We didn't know what
to do with it."
Kip Kogelman of Catasauqua was bowhunting in Lower Macungie on Nov. 12, the last
day of the archery season, when he stumbled across the remains of
Scott's buck. Kogelman immediately
grabbed his cell phone called his hunting partner, Matt German of Collegeville,
Montgomery County, to share the news.
"He said, "You are not going to believe what I found. I found the big one,"'
German said. "We didn't know what to do with it."
Like Scott, Kogelman and German
had been hunting the big buck for
several years. German said he missed it while bowhunting on Dec. 31, 2004. And
Kogelman said his son saw the buck
during the 2004 rifle season but couldn't take the 75-yard shot because it was
standing at the crest of a hill.
Although Kogelman and German didn't yet know who had shot the
buck, there was little doubt the
arrow -- which was still in the deer -- had proven deadly.
"It was right into his vitals," said German, who noted that the
buck died no more than half a mile
from where Scott shot it.
"The arrow just didn't pass through the deer, and because of that, [Scott]
didn't know which way it went."
German and Kogelman removed the buck's
rack from the woods and later shared their story with Bob Danenhower, owner of
Bob's Wildlife Taxidermy in Orefield.
Not long after that, news of their discovery reached
Scott. On Dec. 28, he placed a phone
call to Kogelman to find out whether the buck
he found was the same one he had shot nearly 21/2 months earlier.
"After I talked to him and identified the arrow, he said to me, "I guess you
want to see your deer,"' Scott
said. "He brought it over, and that was it. He didn't hesitate at all."
Kogelman and German said there was no doubt in their minds that giving the rack
to Scott was the right thing to
do.
"He shot it, and he should get it," Kogelman said. "I would want the same done
for me. I'm just happy to be part of it."
With Danenhower acting as a facilitator, the three men then reported the
incident to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, prompting an investigation by
Lehigh County Wildlife Conservation Officer Matthew Teehan.
After conducting interviews with Scott,
Kogelman and German, Teehan concluded all three men had been in illegal
possession of the rack because it wasn't properly tagged.
Although Teehan said the agency should have been contacted as soon as the
buck was found, he decided to cut the
men a break because they were truthful about their actions.
"Based on their stories, and seeing as how they were forthcoming, it seems they
tried to do the right thing," Teehan said. "I think their story was accurate."
Teehan initially seized the buck's
rack as evidence, but later sold it back to
Scott for the agency's standard rate of $10 per point, or $130.
However, Teehan noted this was a highly unusual case and warned sportsmen not to
assume others would be treated the same way.
"Upon my discretion, based on all the facts, we decided to allow him to buy it
so he could have it legally," Teehan said. "This was probably a
once-in-a-lifetime move on my part.
"What we don't want happening is people going out and shooting large deer and
saying, "I want to buy it."'
Unofficial records
With the antlers finally in his possession for good,
Scott was able to have them measured
and determine whether the big buck
was indeed a new state record.
He took the rack to Frank "Rit" Heller of Reading, a certified Pope and Young
measurer who gave the rack an official score of 184 -- making it the
eighth-largest, non-typical, bow buck
in Pennsylvania history, according to the commission's big-game records.
Despite that, commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said
Scott will not be officially credited
with the kill, because the deer was never legally tagged and had to be bought
back from the agency. However, Feaser said the rack could be listed in the
commission's non-typical pick-up category, where it would rank as the
third-largest in state history.
For the same reasons, Scott's
trophy is ineligible for the Pope and Young record book. But Heller said that
hardly diminishes the significance of the rack, which featured main beams that
measured 255/8 inches on the left side and 217/8 inches on the right. The inside
spread was 211/2 inches, and the widest outside spread was 251/8 inches.
"What's really special about the thing is the bases," said Heller, who noted
that the antlers had base circumferences of 71/2 inches on the left and 77/8
inches on the right.
"Those bases belong on an elk," Heller said. "When his rack was here, I also had
a rack from an elk that a local man shot, and those circumferences were very
close to that. That shows you how very large this deer was."
Danenhower, who is using the hide from another large deer to make a shoulder
mount for Scott, said the
buck is the second-largest
Pennsylvania deer he has ever had in his shop. The largest happens to be current
state record for non-typical archery deer -- a 2033/8-inch monster taken in
Lehigh County in 1988 by Craig Krisher of Allentown.
Scott said he is so happy about
having the antlers for his wall that missing out on the state and national
records isn't that big a deal.
"It would have been nice, but it's not the important thing," he said. "I am just
anxious to see this thing mounted."
christian.berg@mcall.com
610-778-2252
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