On the first Sunday of the 2001 Muzzleloader season I was at home getting supper when I received a phone call. It was a local taxidermist and he told me that a young man had just brought him a very large whitetail rack be mounted. He told me that it was very large ten pointer and asked if I would come by and green score the rack when I had the time. I told him at I would come by in a couple of days. I then asked who had killed the deer and he told me the name of a young man that I knew very well. I was kind of glad to hear that a good young man such as him had killed a nice deer instead of a poacher.

Two days later I went to Watonga to score the deer rack. On my way I tided to stop by the local deer check station to see how any deer had been checked in. While looking through the check station book I saw the name of the young man that d killed the large buck. The thing that confused me though, was he had checked in a 80 pound spike on the first day of the season. I kept looking through the book and me across the name of the young man's father and he had checked in a 195 pound 5X5. I then assumed that the taxidermist was confused and the young man's father had led the big deer and the young man had delivered it to taxidermist for his dad.

I left the check station and drove over to the taxidermist's shop. I walked in and the taxidermist handed me the big rack that he wanted me to score. I looked at the carcass tag that was attached to the rack and sure enough it had on it the name of the young man's father.

I then said to the taxidermist, "So, it was the dad that killed the deer and not the kid?"  He looked confused and told me that the deer was killed by the kid. I then pointed out the name on the carcass tag to him and he said, "I'll be damned, I didn't even look at the name on it."  He then told me that the young man had told him the story about how he had killed the deer and never mentioned his dad.  At this point I was pretty sure something was not right about the situation and it deserved some more investigation.

I left the taxidermist and drove downtown to get some lunch.  I just happened to run into the stepbrother of the young man who supposedly killed the big deer.  I asked him about the deer and who had actually killed it.  I could tell that I was making him very uncomfortable by asking him questions. I felt as though he knew something but didn't want to tell me. I changed the subject and we talked a while longer and then went our separate ways. Now I really knew something was up. I went to a restaurant to have lunch and the local sheriff came in and sat down with me. The sheriff just happened to be the young man's uncle so I asked him about the deer. He very matter of factly told me that the young man had indeed killed the deer. I then told him what I had seen in the check station deer book. He seemed confused and told me he didn't know anything about a spike buck. I asked the sheriff where I could find the young man and he told me that he was going to college in Texas and only came home to hunt the opening weekend of the muzzleloader season. At this point I decided to seize the rack from the taxidermist until I could talk to the young man and get the situation straightened out.

Late that night my phone rang and to my surprise it was the young man who started all of this. He said "I heard you wanted' to talk to me." I asked him who killed the big deer. He told me that he had killed the deer. He told me that he had shot the spike on the first day of the season thinking that it was a doe. He then went hunting on the second day to fill his doe tag and the "herd bull" stepped out in front of him and he just couldn't stop himself. He then had his dad check in the deer for him since he had already used his buck tag on the spike. I told the young man that I appreciated his honesty and to contact me when he came home the next weekend from college.

The following weekend the young man contacted me and I met him and wrote him a ticket for exceeding the buck bag limit. I told him that he could not keep the rack since it was an illegal deer. This, of course, hurt him much more than the ticket. He told me that he was wrong and he understood that I had to do my job. He asked me what was going to happen to the rack and I told him that I would keep it at my house. He then asked me if he could stop by every now and then just to look at it. I said sure, come over any time.

The next weekend he called me and asked me if I would go with him to help him set a a tripod stand for the upcoming rifle season. I told him I appreciated the invitation and that I would be glad to help him. (Just goes to show that sometimes we can do our jobs and still be appreciated) Oh yeah, for those of you who are curious the rack has a gross score of 175 7/8 and a net score of 172.