Antlers On The Mantle

These shed deer antlers are much more than a collection of bone.

The dark, matching shed antlers rest on my fireplace mantle. Dust has accumulated on the tines from years of sitting in the house. They are not the largest set of sheds I have ever found, but they are some of the most special to me. They come from a time in my life when my adulthood was really beginning, a time when my dreams were laid out before me. We don’t have the wisdom in our youth to fully appreciate the fact that our lives do indeed go quickly, and retrospectively, I see the errors of my thinking and wishing; I always wanted to be a little older, a little more experienced, a little wiser. Well, those three longings come with a price. Our number of days on earth only decreases, and our bodies acquire more ailments over time. There is no stopping that.

What does this philosophical thinking have to do with my sheds? Well, because when I think of that buck I chased back in my early 20s, I think of my youth, my growth and ultimately my mortality.

I had not been dating my wife long when I started getting trail-camera pictures of this buck on my future in-laws’ land. In truth, hunting was one of the main reasons why my father-in-law and I got along so well from the start. We ran the trail cameras together and discussed the deer we were hoping to get shots at. One buck in particular we discovered near his house in an overgrown cow pasture. If most hunters were to ride by that piece of ground, they would not think twice about hunting there. It’s about a 40-acre triangular plot bordered by a busy paved road, a dirt road and a huge field that has a paved road on the other side of it. It does not look like a single deer would be on the place. But I will tell you this… there was at least one.

Initially, my father-in-law scattered corn in the briars there to attract a covey of quail. We made it a habit to check that spot once a week or two, looking for quail, but then we began noticing some good buck rubs and scrapes close-by on and under the few trees there were. We decided to set up a trail camera.

That night, a beautiful, mature 8-point with long beams and a defining almost ninth point on the end of the left beam showed up. I couldn’t believe it!

A couple of weeks later, my father-in-law attempted a half-way deer drive through the small, wet-weather pond near the dirt road. Though it was rifle season, I foolishly took my bow in hopes of catching the buck sneaking through a lower funnel area of overgrown privet hedges. My father-in-law called me once I was up the tree in my climber to tell me that he was going to slowly walk from the dirt road through the woods like we had discussed. No sooner than we had hung up the phones I heard an animal trotting toward me.

Our 8-point! I drew my bow back and grunted with my mouth, but he never stopped. He never seemed to acknowledge me as he calmly trotted by my tree and out into the big field on the other side. He paused one time to glance back in the direction of my father-in-law before continuing on his way. Had I taken my rifle, that buck would have been down right under my tree. Instead, I watched his long beams fade into the sunset.

I hunted that buck the rest of the season but never saw him again in person, only in pictures. When the middle of March arrived, I decided to walk through the wet-weather pond in search of his shed antlers. I had only been looking for 15 minutes when I saw one side of the dark rack. Picking it up in amazement, I glanced to my left and was elated to see the match not even 10 yards away. I couldn’t believe my luck! Though I didn’t kill the buck, I had his antlers.

The following September, we began getting trail-camera pictures of the distinctive buck, but right before rifle season, he disappeared. We never saw him again. I’m not completely sure what happened to him, but I did hear of someone hitting a nice buck with a truck right there on the paved road. The witness claimed that the person who hit the buck, loaded the big-bodied deer into the truck, with the aid of a second man, and drove off. Though I can’t prove it, I’m convinced that was our big 8-point.

What I do know is that those shed antlers sit on my mantle to this day and remind me of so many things in my life. They remind me to try to slow down time in this fast-paced world we are in. Back when I hunted that buck, my life was different. It was before I was married. It was before I had kids. It was before I had big responsibilities. It was before some of the people I love the most were feeling the effects of age.

My father-in-law is 80 years old now, and though he still enjoys hunting some and staying active with his bird dogs, I know that our hunting days as they used to be are over. In my mind, I see the story of my father-in-law and me plotting our opening-day buck strategies and chasing many deer that we never got. But the chase is what made it fun. Those dark shed antlers on my mantle are a reminder of all the ones that got away, but I am also reminded that the ones we don’t get always leave us with something, even if it is just a great memory.