Obese yearling?

[chummer]

I would guess it is from back to back bad winters. My location always has bad winters and this buck would not be unusual for my area. Other than the fact he probably would have been shot as a spike. We have one or two shot near us every year that go 175 plus and have small 4-6 point racks. They are probably 3.5 yo, it is nearly impossible to see a buck older than that with our winters that follow a 6 week riffle season.

 

[West Branch]

The more I have looked at that pic the more inclined I am to side with the possibility of antlered doe. My only hang up there is I haven't ever seen or heard of one rubbed out to hard horn. They always seem to be velvet antlered.

It looks like they get hard antlers as well. Here is one article from Missouri, in 2011 there were 5 antlered does shot and 2 of them had hard antlers.

http://www.huntingnetwork.com/publi...Deer-Hunters-Take-5-Antlered-Does-in-November

Knowing what the average hunter is like they probably wouldn't even notice if the buck they shot doesn't have nuts.

 

[EOB]

For the record the photo has not been edited or altered. I don't have a hidden agenda. I just thought it was a really large deer with a small rack. We have several deer with similar racks but smaller bodies as one would expect. Could be a doe with a rack, if not I am leaning towards an older buck that the late spring and a hard winter stunted antler development. We have other large bodied bucks with weak antlers, not this small, they have beams and points. They look stunted, short tines on longs beams. Sorry don't have pictures of them. If I get some I will share.