Monster NM Coues Deer found in the Gila

[dhershberger]

I found this monsterous Coues Deer head in September while scouting for elk. He was six miles in the backcountry of the Gila Wilderness. Me and my buddy measured him up and he scores 108" SCI even with the missing brow tine. He makes it over the SCI gold minimum and we were very excited. If he still had his other browtine, he would have scored around 113" SCI and probably would have made it into the Boone and Crockett minimum. I've never seen such a big Coues Deer, he was truly a legendary deer that I'll never forget. Some highlights from his scoring was that he had 19 inch mainbeams, a 14 inch inside spread, 4 inch bases and tons of mass.

 

[jenbickel]

Wow! That's awesome!

 

[Mwalczak]

That is quite impressive. We're heading to the Gila after christmas for some archery mulies... It'll be my first time in unit 16. Any pointers on where to start? Unless we find some hot leads we plan on starting in the NW corner of 16D. Lookin forward to any input.

 

[Ikeepitcold]

Wow that is cool. Is it hard to draw couse deer tags there?

 

[floorya]

he looks pretty sun dried also.that had to shrink alot of mass from him. an awesome buck for sure.

 

[dhershberger]

Wow that is cool. Is it hard to draw couse deer tags there?

Actually in the 16 rifle hunts the tag is called FAD (Fork Antlered Deer) so you can kill a Coues or a mule deer. There are always left over tags in 16 so it is easy to draw.

 

[dhershberger]

That is quite impressive. We're heading to the Gila after christmas for some archery mulies... It'll be my first time in unit 16. Any pointers on where to start? Unless we find some hot leads we plan on starting in the NW corner of 16D. Lookin forward to any input.

I hunted deer in the Gila this year and found a great spot, but its so good that I can't tell anyone else, sorry.

 

[dhershberger]

I looked at the NM record books and this deer is probably in the top 20 typical Coues deer ever found or killed in New Mexico!

 

[schoff]

Very cool, great find!!

 

[BigSurArcher]

Nice. I found a heavy, palmated shed off a coue's in 16D that's a little bigger than that, also a 3x. He had a cute little dropper off his main too. I'll see if I can find a pic.

 

[BigSurArcher]

Nevermind he was a 4x. You can see how much he had broken off, what a brute. It looked like that dropper would have been about 2" before he busted it. Very strong eyeguards like your find.

 

[sjsmallfield]

Very impresive finds guys! Now you need to find them on the hoof.

 

[dhershberger]

Wow that's really big, sweet drop tine!