Big Whitetail From Illinois in Basement over 30YRS

[Maxhunter]

This buck was taken in 1991 by a guy who was mainly a bird hunter. You have to wonder how many big bucks have never been entered in the books. What a dream buck!

Lost For 30 Years: New Potential #3 Whitetail and Illinois State Record Entered

A typical whitetail scoring 207-7/8 was stashed in an Illinois basement for 32 years until some electrical work needed to be done. When the electrician saw it, he “went bonkers.” After a long day of hunting pheasants in Lasalle County, Illinois, Sam Aiuppa put the dog away and climbed into a...

www.boone-crockett.org

 

[JimP]

There are thousands of them sitting in a dark corner in a barn, basement, or just hanging somewhere.

Years ago I was in a bar eating lunch when the owner asked me If I knew anything about mule deer. I told him that I did and followed him down into the basement of the bar. There sitting in a corner was a huge set of antlers from a mule deer. The story was that it was shot on a island on the Green River as the hunters floated it from Green River Utah down to the confluence of the Colorado.

The antlers had at least a 40" spread and were close to that high with long tines and huge eye guards. It had 5 main points on each side not counting the eye guards. I talked to him about it for a while and found out that his uncle had shot it and just left it at the bar to be hung on the wall, which never happened.

I have no idea of what ever happened to that rack. I stopped in at the bar a few years ago and it had been sold at least twice since I had seen the rack.

 

[buckbull]

The nineties were some good times to be a deer hunter in Illinois.

 

[ScottR]

Roger Selner was a master at finding gems like that for his tours.

 

[mallardsx2]

It was probably poached, and enough time has passed that hes comfortable showing the public......

Hate to say it but that's the case with a lot of heads that are starting to appear now.
Parties involved in the truth have passed away and then out come the horns.

 

[ScottR]

It was probably poached, and enough time has passed that hes comfortable showing the public......

Hate to say it but that's the case with a lot of heads that are starting to appear now.
Parties involved in the truth have passed away and then out come the horns.

There is definetly some of that. The other angle though is the culture has shifted, poachers now are doing it so that they can show it off. Guys back then didn't have social media, shoot forums like this barely existed and were super hard to post photos to. Other than the local watering hole there werent' many places a buck like that would show up. So point is that it very well could be legal, he may have had 15 minutes showing to a few friends and then did nothing with it.

 

[RICMIC]

Odd timing, but my sister just called me from So. Carolina asking if I wanted a Boone & Crocket white-tail rack. A widowed friend of hers has inherited it after the family member who had it in his basement for years had passed on. I was offered the rack because no one else wanted it. Family lore was that it was a #2 top buck in Minnesota, Yada, Yada, Yada...... I told her that my interest in mounting antlers is as a rememberance of the experience, and that deadheads on the wall don't really interest me. BUT, she will hang on to it and I may just change my mind if I ever see it. So, maybe a year or two from now I will post the photo.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

My thoughts are similar to RICMIC's. What I have are rememberances of my hunts. I do have a mount that was my Dad's that he shot before I was old enough to hunt. It was shot in Malibu, Ca. (Malibu is another story for another time) and in pretty shabby condition when he passed away. I took it to my local Taxi and had it remounted and it is on the wall in my family room. I was offered a really nice moose head years ago that I turned down. Did not do anything for me!

 

[Winchester]

Nice buck CC !

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

The Malibu story.....

During WW2 my Dad was a Superintendent on the P51 Mustang assembly line, They would not take him in the service because his job was to important. He saved enough money that he bought 10 acres in Malibu just above the beach. He built a cabin (he called it "his shack") and we stayed weekends there. There were literally 100's of deer there. They ate anything Dad planted. Dad drilled 5 wells which came up dry. There was no domestic water available back then during the pre movie star era. Eventually Dad sold the property (he always said it was the biggest mistake he ever made!! LOL).
He always hunted deer there and shot this buck in about 1950. The taxi back then said it was a mule deer, not a blacktail. The hair was about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long and the body was huge for a California coastal deer. He got 170# of meat from it. There was a large ranch owned by people from Utah and the unban legend was they imported some Utah mule deer and turned them loose on their place. This buck sure looks like a mule deer buck from there for sure.

 

[HuskyMusky]

as an IL deer hunter..., you come across tons of guys that say they'd never score their buck officially etc... or enter it, or only if it were really big like 170"+....