Bucks Lock Antlers, Drown In Pond

Jay Crouch found these two bucks locked together in a pond on his Putnam County hunting property.

It wasn’t the news Jay Crouch, of Eatonton, wanted to hear on a December afternoon. His wife’s grandmother called to say there appeared to be a deer floating in her 3-acre pond, which sits on property where Jay and his son, Ethan, 10, hunt. In fact, they’d been hunting a big one all year.

“I was like, ‘Oh no, I hope it isn’t the big deer,’” Jay said.

It wasn’t, thankfully. However, the floating “deer” turned out to be a pair of bucks.

“I waded out and found two bucks locked up,” said Jay. “I didn’t have my camera on me, but the water was clear, and their heads were facing down. I didn’t think they would come apart, but they did when I was pulling them in to shore.”

Although neither buck was the one they had been hunting, one of them was a super 1 1/2-year-old 10-pointer, the other a 2 1/2-year-old 7-pointer. From the rank smell, Jay guessed the bucks had been dead for about five days.