A World-Record Crown Without Jewels
By Mike Handley
The Indiana buck Seth Hernandez shot with his crossbow on Oct. 29 had antlers to spare, but no change in its purse. Not that the deer hunter nor the three dozen friends who ogled it at his home spent much time looking underneath the new world record.
The first clue this was no ordinary buck was its 284-inch rack. The second indicator was the antlers were still covered in velvet, long after most deer across North America had rubbed off theirs. Clue No. 3: While the animal was clearly male, it had no visible testicles.
The deer likely is the victim of cryptorchidism, a birth defect causing the buck’s testicles not to drop into the scrotum, remaining instead somewhere within the body cavity. This slows the production of testosterone, which alters the antler-growing process.
“Cryptorchid bucks are different,” writes Joe Hamilton, a wildlife biologist and founder of the Quality Deer Management Association. “Because their testosterone levels remain low in early fall, their antler development is not completed, and their velvet is not shed.”
Hamilton says such bucks don’t rub trees or make scrapes. Their necks don’t swell during the rut, and their tarsal glands are usually unstained.
“Reproductively, they are in neutral,” he added. “Antlers are not shed, and they remain in velvet year round. Furthermore, the antlers continue to grow as the animal matures.”
The gym owner from Grovertown, Indiana, might not have guessed the whys behind the buck’s appearance when he and his wife, Tiffany, first glassed it in late June, but the Hernandezes knew it was different. While other bucks were in the very early stages of growing their new racks, this one looked done with the process.
Tiffany saw it first that day, and she then handed the binoculars to Seth.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I knew I was looking at the biggest deer I’d ever seen.”
The couple hunts several farms in Starke County, Indiana. This one is 100 square acres, basically a large soybean field, and they hunt the tree line at its edge.
A few days later, Seth saw the buck a second time in a green field with a bachelor group.
“The deer was definitely using those two spots. It had a very small core area,” he said. “It just ate and slept, and was daylighting daily. It always waited until dark to go out into the beans.
“A few neighbors knew about the deer, but they weren’t saying anything to me, and I wasn’t saying anything to them,” he added.
While Seth employs trail cameras at many of the tracts he hunts, he did not have any where the big buck was living. He decided not to put any more pressure than necessary on the deer for as long as he could keep tabs on it by glassing.
During Seth’s first sit on Oct. 7, he spotted the buck in a weed patch 150 yards distant and watched it for a half-hour.
“Just seeing the deer, which had to be 30 inches wide on the outside, really made my season,” he said.
On Oct. 29, Seth guessed correctly that the deer might be on its feet ahead of an approaching cold front. It was 84 degrees that day, and the wind was blowing 20 miles per hour out of the southwest. Conditions were going to change overnight.
“I took my crossbow that day because I wanted to stack every odd in my favor,” he said.
Seth was atop his 18-feet-tall ladder stand affixed to a cottonwood by 2:30. A couple of does came through about 5 p.m., which boosted his confidence. An hour later, Seth heard something walking in the leaves and turned to see the colossus only 35 yards away, upwind, standing at the edge of the field.
It seemed nervous, and then ran into the field, looking in every direction as if were about to bolt.
“I just focused on the shot,” Seth said.
Because a few small saplings were blocking the vitals, he chose to aim for the exposed shoulder. After the loud thwack, the deer plowed into the field for about 50 yards, and then slowly tipped over and fell.
Later that night, a friend from Ohio suggested he take the rack to Buckmasters scorers Toby and Lori Hughes in Ohio. They arrived at 284 inches, a new world record for velvet-clad Irregulars felled by a crossbow.
Based solely on size, the 8 1/2-year-old buck is the second-largest whitetail ever recorded from the state, behind Tim Beck’s 2012 shotgun buck from Huntington County.
The full story behind this incredible deer will appear in a future issue of Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine.
Field Photo by Joe Erb
Rack/Scoring Photos by Lori Hughes