A hard-core group of bow-hunting enthusiasts has been hunting on a barrier island in the Cape Romaine National Wildlife Refuge for decades It’s “hard” hunting, where you provide your own boat for transportation to the island and bring all the supplies necessary for your stay.
Scott Bailey of Columbia was on his 17th annual hunt in a row when he arrowed a buck that was a trophy in more than one regard.
Besides having a freakish rack that featured a series of stickers of roughly equal length protruding from the bases of both antlers, the 15-point buck was aged by a taxidermist at 8 ½ years old.
Age is one part of the equation that enables deer to grow big racks, and if you consider the habitat on Bull’s Island, it may explain how a deer could survive so long. In 1989, Hurricane Hugo flattened the island, and the maritime forest that is slowly growing back is still a thick jungle of vegetation.
When Bailey stopped the trophy buck with a spine shot at 7:25 a.m. on Nov. 10, it was slipping through the edge of some myrtle bushes. Bailey was 20 feet up in a palmetto tree in a Summit climbing stand.
The 31-yard shot was dead on; the buck went down out of sight, but Bailey was confident his arrow hit pay dirt and immediately got down to inspect his rare trophy.
“When I saw he was still in velvet, I couldn’t believe what I had done, and I’m still surprised by it,” he said.
Why was this buck still in velvet, and why were its antlers so freakish?
Tony Spires, an enforcement officer with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, was on the hunt and had a hunch that the buck lacked the testosterone that signals the antlers to harden and later drop off.
Upon examining the scrotum of the buck, Spires found that it had no testicles — only fatty tissue — which may explain why the buck had never shed its velvet nor cast its antlers. It also could explain why it grew such a unique rack.
Bailey learned that SCDNR will not score bucks in velvet during its series of March scoring sessions, but he elected to have it mounted with the velvet intact.
“This was a special deer for me because it came from a place that holds so many outdoor memories for me and my father,” he said.
Plus, the velvet rack will stand the test of time in the story-telling department.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was written by Jeff Dennis.
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