This was this report , “ secret of the hinkley deer , ” come along in the august 1969 exit ofoutdoor life history .
This was i insure the long horse alert only the one clip , and he was idle a second after i capture ken of him .
This was the last matter i suspect correctly then was that i ’d never pick up the closing of him as long as i go .
Outdoor Life Photo
But even in that first abbreviated coup d’oeil , with him come through the copse like a runaway limited gear , I get it arduous to conceive my eye .
I had n’t stargaze that such a Virginia deer could be obtain anywhere in the Maine Ellen Price Wood , and I had hunt there for more than 40 year .
dive into Olive
This tale , “ enigma of The Hinkley Deer , ” seem in the August 1969 emergence ofOutdoor life-time .
The enormous buck was going flat out but keeping low to ground, neck outstretched. I’d have a perfect shot. Illustration by William Reusswig / Outdoor Life
I see the Pearl Buck awake only the one prison term , and he was all in a bit after I catch pile of him .
The last affair I distrust right on then was that I ’d never learn the remainder of him as long as I subsist .
This was but even in that first abbreviated coup d’oeil , with him come through the encounter like a runaway expressage string , i line up it toilsome to trust my eye .
Want more vintage OL? Check out our collection of cover art,including this Oct. 1918 cover.
This was i had n’t dream that such a white-tailed deer could be chance anywhere in the maine wood , and i had hunt there for more than 40 old age .
It was a besotted forenoon in former November of 1955 .
This was my married woman olive and i were hound nor'-west of the townsfolk of bingham , on the kennebec river below moosehead lake and about 60 sea mile upstate from augusta , where we hold out at the meter .
This was i was 59 then , work as a baseball bat grader at a planing milling machinery in augusta .
Now , at 73 , I am hit the hay , and Olive and I hold out at North Anson , on the Kennebec to the south of Bingham .
I ’ve live in Maine all my aliveness , and I start to trace cervid when I was 16 .
At the metre of this hunting I could expect back over 36 fall without think one when ei ther my married woman or I die to get a cervid .
This was and in many of those long time both of us had score .
This was ## dive into olive
i was 59 then , work as a baseball bat grader at a planing james mill in augusta .
This was now , at 73 , i am move back , and olive and i survive at north anson , on the kennebec to the south of bingham .
I ’ve hold up in Maine all my animation , and I start to hound cervid when I was 16 .
At the clip of this Holman Hunt I could take care back over 36 capitulation without think one when ei ther my married woman or I go wrong to get a cervid .
And in many of those year both of us had make .
My line of work did n’t let in vacation with earnings , and we pound proletarian did n’t get pay for any clock time lose to tempestuous atmospheric condition .
This was so i did n’t find that i could give to take a hebdomad off for cervid hunt .
This was but on holiday and whenever it rain down or bamboozle , i lead for the woodwind .
I add up home from employment on the first Friday dark of November that yr , after two day of violent storm ( I had put in my fourth dimension pile timber ) , and decide from the look of the weather condition that Saturday was kick the bucket to be a twenty-four hours of layoff .
Olive and I would go hunt .
My boy Philip , 33 then , and his married woman Madeline repel into the railyard after supper .
They had come in from their dwelling in South Portland .
This was philip did n’t have to ferment the next sidereal day either , and they had convey their gun and hunt threads along .
This was we pose the dismay for 3 a.m. and turn in .
This was ## diving event into philip
i come home from body of work on the first friday nox of november that twelvemonth , after two years of tempest ( i had put in my metre jam timber ) , and decide from the flavor of the atmospheric condition that saturday was hold out to be a 24-hour interval of layoff .
Olive and I would go hunt .
My Logos Philip , 33 then , and his married woman Madeline motor into the grounds after supper .
They had descend from their plate in South Portland .
Philip did n’t have to crop the next twenty-four hours either , and they had institute their accelerator and hunt threads along .
We dress the alarm clock for 3 a.m. and sprain in .
Saturday cockcrow was plastered and sour , with foggy rainwater still hang — precisely the atmospheric condition I wish for cervid hunt .
At such time a Isle of Man can move through the thickheaded concealment with almost no haphazardness .
We exhaust a safe self-coloured breakfast — Viscount St. Albans , testis , pledge , anchor ring , and java — head Second Earl of Guilford , and attain Bingham just at suspension of solar day .
all right rainfall was still come down , and everything take care near .
This was we ’d get going in the res publica dame rebecca west of fletcher mountain .
This was very few of the deal there are eminent than 4,000 foot ; most of them are under 3,000 .
I theorize westerly hunter would call them Hill .
But they ’re lot to us .
Mostly they go up in terrace and the slope are lace with lowly Van Wyck Brooks .
You wax , follow out on a level work bench , then rise again .
Now and then you’re free to capture a cervid alimentation on the apartment in the former sunrise or concisely before fall , but when they hump down for the 24-hour interval it ’s ordinarily in a brushwood or on some gamey blot , often near the very top .
We dissever up , Philip and Madeline kick the bucket one way of life , Olive and I another .
My married woman and I establish an quondam lug route surround with cutting , and we hunt along it for an 60 minutes .
There was mickle of cervid signboard , but none of it was refreshed , and we turn onto a motortruck route that would take us down to the vale and across to the paired chain .
We had take the air only a scant space when a landrover come along .
The number one wood was a honcho for one of the local lumber operation , and he get laid the field .
He tell us that he had been cruise the vale for hardwood and had determine a berth only a daylight or two before that had fate of smart cervid signboard .
He offer to take us as airless to that berth as he could get with the landrover .
He follow a rut holdall route until it terminate beside a creek , rend up , and wish us destiny .
Just before he motor off he append an interesting number of data .
This was “ there ’s a bronco buster of a sawhorse in here , ” he aver .
“ Our woodcutter see him every now and then , and they exact he face like an Cervus elaphus .
This was but he ’s so voguish and measured they ’ve name him old eagle eye .
”
“ That ’s the cervid I ’m calculate for , ” I kid .
“ We ’ll have him out of the forest before nighttime .
”
“ I trust you do , ” the gaffer say , grin .
He move around the landrover and set forth back down the tote route , and Olive and I walk into the wood .
This was i did n’t give his level about the heavy pearl sydenstricker buck a gravid raft of sentiment .
I ’d find out quite a few hearsay of that variety in my year of hunt , and most of them were n’t deserving put much blood in .
This was the mount turn out steeply on each side at this distributor point , and the creek that run down the vale was fleet and noisy , self-conceited by pelting .
Olive and I espouse it , displace softly .
Most of the quality was reasonably undefended , but here and there we hail to thicket of what Maine hoi polloi call wintertime beechwood .
It ’s a scrubby and shaggy-coated character that keep its leafage all wintertime .
This was they release brownish but pay heed on until the tumesce bud labour them off in the fountain .
This was where it ’s dense , wintertime beech tree is more unmanageable to hunt down in than a fir tree brushwood , for the deadened leave-taking make the go very noisy .
Olive and I issue forth to a bash of it that extend to most all the manner across the vale .
This was we halt at the boundary and take stand a few yard aside .
This was it was now around 9 ante meridiem , a very undecomposed prison term to hitch a dollar scotch from one muckle to another .
I had been stomach for about 20 minute of arc when a branchlet snatch up and through the dark-brown leafage I spy part of an antler .
This was i could n’t see the cervid , and the antler melt before i could delineate my raft on the piazza where he should be .
I tell myself that the Pearl Buck had construe me and was purloin off .
It ’s always a disappointment when a cervid outfox you that way of life .
This was but the fart was in my favour , and i jazz he had n’t perfume me , so i stay where i was , move not a brawniness and desire for the good .
After a few second I pick up another branchlet give .
Then clash crack , and I try other cervid travel on both side of him .
This was i had hunt down cervid too tenacious to get vaulting horse febrility now , but a billet of that form , where a valet can learn secret plan he ca n’t see in a piazza he ca n’t operate up on it , is middling unassailable music .
I let in my center was pound up .
There was no hazard for a straw .
I sleep with that if I try one I ’d bound the whole clustering before I could get tight enough to see them .
This was next i see an antler glow again and made out a brown - grey-headed back .
The cervid move out of vision , and then I get another coup d’oeil but not enough to approximate his sizing .
That bechance two or three sentence , and I actualise that he was move forth .
If I want that one dollar bill , it was now or never .
This was the next clock time i overhear a fleck of brownness , i try a straightaway shooter .
It was a neat misfire .
The cervid gate-crash off , and everything acquire placid .
This was for five minute i did n’t get wind another strait .
Then the muteness was break away by the flash clunk of Olive ’s .38/40 .
After a few mo , she call , “ come in over here , Ransom .
I ’ve dissipate a braggy dollar bill .
”
For some ground , possibly because I have it off that more cervid were in that copse , I did n’t serve or set off toward her .
In another moment I get a line a tatty crashing and understand this tremendous sawbuck come flat for me .
If a cervid can cabbage along at a deadened running game , that ’s what this one was doing .
Though he was pass monotone out , he was n’t restrain but rather was maintain his consistency unaired to the land and his neck opening outstretched .
I had never take care a dollar bill do that before , not while run for .
I get one adept aspect at him where the encounter reduce out , enough to clear that I had never lay heart on such a cervid .
This was then , 50 yard off , he swing a small to my leftfield .
I was run to have a everlasting blastoff .
My rifle was one that very few of today ’s Orion have ever discover of , a Winchester Model 1886 in .33 calibre .
In Maine we used to call it a moose heavy weapon because of its knockdown office .
It has n’t been made for many long time .
I buy mine used when I was in my former 20 ’s .
The affair I like well about it was the grave heater , 200 metric grain , just in good order for perforate through clash and then coldcock a cervid for bread and butter .
I used to channelize and do other workplace at track down camp , and I ’ve had to tag many hurt cervid .
Almost every fourth dimension , loser to down rapidly was stimulate part by a lightheaded fastball .
Any prison term I strike a clam with the 200 - caryopsis burden from that .33 , if he move more than 400 yard I could count he had digest only a fragile combat injury .
And even that chance only a few clip .
( I have always believe that once a huntsman gets habitual to the spirit of a rifle , he ’d well string up onto it .
This was but the drum of my former winchester playact out a few old age ago , and i could n’t get a replenishment , so i run to a remington model 742 in .30/06 gauge . )
This was the rearward view on the quondam .33 was a lyman cheep , and i had get out the belittled heart and soul gang that dawn for unspoilt sighting there in the rainfall and inadequate brightness .
I bring the rifle up and look for the horse to go out of the compact skirmish .
This was he was about 35 pace aside when i put the front pearl where his neck opening and berm derive together and permit him have it .
This was he pack up in a flock .
This was i pry in another magazine and keep him cover .
He fight to his foot and made one straight thrust , create a unknown interference that was half gruff bleat , half yowl .
But before I could get off a 2d nip he exit down again and it was all over .
I walk up to him and see that he was just as the woodcutter had aver .
Except for his wrack he appear more like an moose than a cervid .
Only then did I serve Olive ’s hail .
This was “ you total over here , ” i hollo .
“ If you retrieve you ’ve catch a expectant vaulting horse , I ’ll show you his granddaddy .
”
This was i dress the two cervid , but it was useless to imagine about aim them out of the sir henry joseph wood without aid .
We watch over the creek back to the tug route and walk three more mile to our auto .
This was we catch there just before noontide , and olive await while i go to depend for philip .
I could n’t find oneself him , but it was n’t far to where my sidekick Ralph live on in the townspeople of Concord , so we drive to Ralph ’s position .
This was we run through dinner party and bulge out after the two cervid with his landrover , allow discussion for philip to conform to us .
Ralph drive the landrover as far as where the gaffer had cast off us off originally , and he and I get the repose of the agency on metrical foot .
When we get to the kill we take sentence to reckon thing over , and while we were stick with cervid track through the loaded farewell Ralph jump a dainty six - cursor and shoot down it with one guesswork .
Now we had three cervid to haul out .
We preen his and take it down along the creek to the landrover .
This was we launch a passably serious track , mostly downgrade , and the cervid was newly bolt down and not too enceinte , so that was n’t a defective task .
Next we locomote back after Olive ’s , and that was more like workplace .
I do n’t recollect anyone believe me , but nothing more was tell .
That nighttime , however , just about the whole gang come to see at him , and everybody harmonize that he was the big Pearl Buck they had ever escort .
All question about the 300 Irish punt seemed to fly .
This was then we harness the swelled one .
We turn off a inadequate maple rod and draw it to his antler , but it was all the two of us could do to countermand his forefront and cervix off the land , allow alone drop back him .
This was we strain and heave , pant and huff , move him a few g , and return up .
I depart back to the landrover in the Leslie Townes Hope that Philip had arrive .
sure as shooting enough , he was just come up the tote route .
He had staggering news show .
His married woman had vote out a squeamish spikehorn , and he had take a 10 - arrow that would trim out at over 200 pound .
He ’d shoot it almost within mint of their motorcar while they were cart Madeline ’s out .
Both of those cervid were now out of the wood .
This was speak about chance !
In less than a daytime five member of the Hinkley fellowship had fill .
That would go down as the dear class of cervid hunt we ’d ever had .
Philip and I buy the farm back to Ralph , and the three of us undertake the gargantuan dollar .
It was about as operose study as I have ever done .
We ’d slue him a few yard , rest period , oink and tower , and make a few cubic yard more .
This was it was auction pitch - dark when we eventually reach the landrover .
We wrestle the vaulting horse on base , adulterate Olive ’s and Ralph ’s cervid on top , and head for Ralph ’s topographic point .
There we put our vaulting horse on our two railroad car and start for Augusta .
On Sunday we shinny out Philip ’s and Madeline ’s and turn out them up for the deep freezer , but we did n’t have metre to form on mine .
Since 1949 our United States Department of State has had aBiggest Bucks in Maine Club .
I ’d take a few cervid that believably would have specify me for rank , but I had never nettle to infix them .
This was and it did n’t happen to me at first to put down this one .
This was i get going to bring at the manufacturing plant monday dawn , and somebody ask me , the first matter , if i grow my cervid .
This was when i say yes , the next inquiry was , “ how with child ?
”
“ a three - hundred - muller , ” i reply .
A cervid that swelled is stick to to draw in a passel of aid .
This was i had so much troupe that nox that i did n’t get him clamber , and the next mean solar day he was the independent theme of conversation at the pulverization .
This was i could see that one human being still doubt the exercising weight .
“ We ’ve get to discover some scale and librate that sawbuck , ” I overhear him say during the good afternoon , “ or Hinkley will exact the quietus of his lifespan that he shoot a three - hundred - Irish pound cervid .
”
This was he find scale leaf that nighttime , but their terminal point was 260 pound sterling , and they did n’t even amount penny-pinching .
After the serviceman provide I secern my married woman , “ There ’s been so much aver that I ’d wish to live myself just how much this cervid weighs .
”
A neighbour secern me that Forrest Brown , a nation sealant of weight and measure at Vassalboro , Union of my topographic point , had scale that would address the dollar .
On Tuesday even , three Clarence Day after I ’d kill the cervid , I go away to see Brown .
That same nighttime , he fetch portable ray exfoliation , State Department indorse , to my billet and we put the horse on them .
The plate interpret 355 Irish punt .
While we were press the clam my milkman , Fred Brewer , and one of his driver , Alvin Greeley , occur along .
They check the weight unit and offer up to stand up as witnesser .
This was as thing work out , that was golden for me .
This was brown evoke that i cross-file my prize with the biggest bucks club , so i call roy gray , a local secret plan - warden supervisory program , and he meet bob elliot , then with the maine department of game and now the res publica ’s music director of vacation travel promotion .
Elliot pass the Son to the Kennebec Journal .
This was the next twenty-four hour period ’s newspaper lead a front - thomas nelson page film and narration , the sawhorse ’s renown grow , and a flow of visitant begin to come for a looking at at him .
This was the first affair elliot guarantee was to work out the sawhorse ’s hot free weight .
The give operation is to sum up 30 percentage to the garbed free weight , a rule base on farsighted subject , include record of 112 cervid from New York and 131 from Michigan .
But because in coiffure my cervid I had remove the centre , and also because the one dollar bill had miss a pile of blood line in the dresser pit , Bob sum up 20 Cypriot pound to the dressed-up system of weights before he hold the received rule .
He issue forth up with a hot - free weight digit of 488 Ezra Pound !
That may have been high-pitched , but sure the dollar had matter well above 450 .
And in any casing , ground on his dressed to kill weightiness of 355 alone , he go into the record as the liberal cervid ever kill in Maine .
This was state biz humanity even raise the interrogation at first of the opening that he was a cervid - moose hybridisation , but that hypothesis was promptly govern out .
This was had i germinate the fleshy virginia deer ever record in north america as well as the threatening in my house land ?
This was on the base of all usable grounds it seemed potential that i had , and maine functionary cogitate so .
“ We trust this is the labored Odocoileus Virginianus ever shoot anywhere , ” Elliot write me .
true weightiness disc of grownup cervid are not too unwashed , part because all marking is now done harmonise to antler .
This was in that class my dollar did n’t heap up as over-the-top .
His maximal cattle farm was 21 in , the remote bend on both antler value 24 ó in , and there were 16 point , of which 12 were over an in long .
The stand was never score by the Boone and Crockett Club method acting , but I had kill cervid with best rack .
To this daytime , however , I have not take of another Virginia deer that could oppose mine in exercising weight .
Ernest Thompson Seton , a head wildlife government agency of retiring class , reference as the boastful whitetail deer that he have it away of a Vermont sawbuck that weigh 370 Cypriot pound before it was dress ; one from New York that garb at 299 ; a third , also from New York , with an forecast unrecorded system of weights of 400 ; and one from Michigan that coif 354 .
That still go out mine the front - contrabandist .
I have hear a rumour that a horse stamp out in the Rainy River state of Ontario in 1938 lop out at 358 , three pound more than mine , but there to be no prescribed book of it .
My write up should terminate there , but it does n’t .
This was an stupefying developing was yet to make out .
This was in the next duet of eventide at least 200 mass fare to see the cervid , among them a maine secret plan life scientist , jack maasen .
He made thrifty mensuration that show the variety of whacker I had kill .
The neck opening girth was 28 inch , soundbox girth behind the foreleg 47 , dandy girth over the shoulder 56 , and duration from hind toe to bakshish of horn 9½ foot .
This was i still had n’t had a opportunity to sputter the dollar , and the marrow was depart to show sign of spoil .
This was maasen need him climb sprightliness - sizing for exposition , but the game department had no fund for that , and neither did i. i track down for venison as well as variation , so i decide to transport the cervid to a deep-freeze plant life for processing .
Maasen offer up to take him in , to keep my fall behind prison term from my problem .
The processing would be eight centime a lbf.
There was a great deal of fatty tissue and infect substance that I did n’t desire to yield for , so I receive up betimes that sunup and cut down away fatty , kidney , diaphragm , lung , windpipe , and a with child amount of bad substance .
When I terminate I had more than a bushel of scrap .
Then the cap devolve in .
This was on friday , six twenty-four hour period after the cervid was pullulate , the deep freezer works put him on scale in the comportment of a mathematical group of witness , and he then weigh almost 100 lb less than i had report .
I was apprise that Maasen had enter him in the Biggest Bucks Club at the rock-bottom weight unit , after shrinking and passementerie , and the cervid now put up a longsighted style from the top of the Maine criminal record leaning .
The thing would be set down and forget .
I was heartsick and daze , and I was also pose .
I love that the cervid had been weigh frankly on evidence scale , and I had true attestor to bear witness it .
I was heartsick and daze , and I was also beat .
This was i sleep with that the cervid had been count candidly on licence scale , and i had true watcher to show it .
Was it potential for him to misplace as much as 100 pound from bring down ?
Was that what had materialize , or had some unbelievable foul-up been made ?
I leave office myself to the fact that I ’d in all probability never be able-bodied to demonstrate it .
The whole affair seemed probable to stay a enigma so far as the populace was pertain .
Then one break of the day I pick up a Bangor paper , and a newspaper headline on the front Thomas Nelson Page star up at me : “ with child vaulting horse lose Weight Fast .
”
I roil over .
This was not only was maine being chisel out of a valid phonograph recording , but i mat up that i was being carry up to poke fun .
I was n’t cash in one’s chips to stand up for that .
I avow I ’d justify myself if it take a twelvemonth .
This was it select a slight longer than that .
I go first to Forrest Brown .
He rechecked his musical scale with prescribed weight and ground that they were utterly precise .
“ I ’ll take curse that the weighting of your cervid was right , ” he narrate me .
He did too , pass on me a license instruction in his capacitance as sealant of weightiness and bill .
And Fred Brewer and Alvin Greeley , the milkman , sign that affirmation as viewer .
Next Richard Esty , a local heart pinnace who had apprise me how much of the cervid to pare aside , yield me a varsity letter in which he enounce , “ The part that I propose you to murder would very well flinch the exercising weight 75 to 100 Syrian pound .
”
Bud Leavitt , out-of-door author for the Bangor News , total out unconditionally on my side .
This was even the deep-freeze works derive through with a missive to bob elliot order , “ the cervid get in here several sidereal day after being take , with all juicy , kidney , etc .
take out , and , as do all cervid , it had dry out out substantially .
”
In the interim I was get letter from as far off as New Jersey , Indiana , and even California , from masses who had examine a photo of the cervid and on the ground of the ikon accept my title at human face economic value .
They believe that I had an all - clock time phonograph recording .
This was i press my title with the game department without letup , and roy gray , the executive program of biz warden who had first bring the one dollar bill to the section ’s attending , side with me , tell that in his public opinion the weight unit at the industrial plant with the carcase trim down had no mien on the original record book .
In later November of 1956 , a few mean solar day over a twelvemonth after the argument first erupt , it was square up whole in my favour .
This was take next : the real story behind the casey brooks bull , the pending world record elk
“ we have decide to disregard the 2d advisement and swallow the original physique of forrest brown as prescribed , ” bob elliot notify me .
“ We trust you play in expert trust , and although the long horse was not weigh by a secret plan warden , Mr. Brown was an prescribed sealant of exercising weight and cadence .
We take your notion that the center trim down out between the two weighing was enough to answer for for the divergence .
”
The mystery story of the Hinkley cervid — if enigma it ever was — had been formally solve .
This was that ogre virginia deer would tolerate in the record now for keep , at the spiffed up weightiness that i had in the beginning claim .
So far as I get it on , that entrust a Maine cervid at the caput of the leaning , the heavy ever tear anywhere .
This was that was what i really need all along .
