Weirdest, oddest, freaky, deformed critter you ever took.

[6mm Remington]

This is a 5x2 bull I took a few years ago with my .280 Remington. His rack was not deformed from when in velvet as there was no damage to it. I have seen one other bull like this in this same unit, so it must be some genetic trait. It would have been cool to get him a few years older, but still a neat animal. My shot was not true on this guy at about 250 yards and was right behind the shoulder but just a trifle high. The bullet actually just nicked the bottom of his spine. He dropped instantly but ran off leaving only a small fingernail sized drop of blood every 40 feet or so in the 5 inches of snow. He bedded the first time about 1/2 a mile later with a nice pool of blood in his bed. He got up and took off and I never saw him. He completely stopped bleeding, but I knew he was a dead elk and it was my responsibility to find him so I kept tracking him in the snow. He took me through some of the worst stuff you could imagine. I ended up catching up to him for the last time and putting a killing shot into him 7 hours and roughly 7 miles later! He dropped to my shot at about 25 feet in heavy junipers and instantly dropped out of sight as we were roughly 100 yards directly above a 4x4 trail at this point and it was about a 70 degree slope. He went crash bang, crash bang for a few seconds and then a very loud thud when he hit the jeep tral! There were two guys on the trail putting chains on their truck, and the bull almost hit them! The guy who was trying to get a shot at the elk he had just seen above him on the hill was only about 15 feet from where the elk hit! They had no idea I had been trailing this bull from 7:20 AM that morning and had already shot him once. It was quite a day, and not the biggest elk, but my best story and weirdest looking animal I have ever taken. The whole story to tell is pretty long, but this elk put me through heck! That's what happens when we sometimes don't make a perfect shot no matter what side the caliber was used!! Lets see some oddball animal photo's if you have them!! :grin:

 

[DrMike]

A great story, to be sure. Not much out of the ordinary for me, except for a warty moose a few years back. He walked out of dense fog and stood broadside at about forty yards. I shot and he turned to run. I heard him drop and thrash around a second or two later. My hunting partner told me to climb a tree and point him to the moose. As he walked toward where I was directing him, he suddenly dropped out of sight. Unbeknownst to us, there was a deep creek between me and the moose. Brush covered the edge of the creek. Gil clamored up the other side and there was the moose a few yards beyond. We worked like slaves to get that critter over the creek. When we got him across and turned him over, he was covered with warts on the side that had been turned from me. They were massive, ugly warts. He did taste good, however. I never told my wife that she was eating warty moose.

I've been with fellows that have shot whitetail/mule deer crosses on a couple of occasions. Strange fellows, those.

 

[6mm Remington]

That's funny Mike. Probably a good thing to leave out the whole wart thing with the wife! I was with my buddy who got a really nice antelope that had each horn coming out at a forward angle over his nose. He was pretty cool looking, and speaking of warts, we got a really nice buck mule deer one time that had some type of growth on his neck that looked like a huge fatty deposit. He was butterball fat and really good eating. I'll have to see if I can take a picture of the pictures so I can post them as well.

 

[owenv]

My uncle shot a mulie doe that had a 4 point antler rack. Sorry no pics.

 

[6mm Remington]

Antelope buck taken by my good friend Don many years ago. He was sure neat looking the way both horns came out over his face.

6x6 bull elk if not broken taken by another good friend Mark quite a few years ago. AS you can see in the picture, his skull plate had been broken probably fighting many years ago and yet he managed to survive and his skull healed in an odd angle. The left antler comes out from the top front of his forehead, not the side like it should. I was unable right now to find the freaky buck with the growth or goiter's as called them.

 

[6mm Remington]

My uncle shot a mulie doe that had a 4 point antler rack. Sorry no pics.

That's cool. I've never seen a doe with horns, but have heard about them. A few years back my dad shot a buck in velvet that had no testicles. I guess all told I've been lucky enough to see or have had friends harvest some odd looking critters.

 

[super-7]

About ten years ago we were hunting moose, my Ol'man seen a smaller bull across a small hay field about 250, and he finally after watching him eat for a few minutes decided he'd be a good meat bull. ( thats all dad looks for don't want no run down bull thats been fighting) anyways he makes a good shot and we walk back get the truck to go load him and he only has 1 horn, so me and my BIL start harrassing the ol man that the other one was broke off fighting, just to get him going. Well we load him up and got him home and went to the work of skinning him thats when we noticed he only had one testicle, the same side as the horn. Well the ol man started calling him a MORPHIDITE ( I don't no if that is spelled right), but it is supposedly dual sex. Any ways long story short, morphidite moose still tastes just fine. He still tells the story every hunting camp since.

 

[JD338]

Back in the mid 80's, I shot a WT buck during the late archery season. I thought he had broken off one side but instead it was a knarled up mass of horn with 4 pts on it.
When I pulled off the hide, I discovered that this buck was hit by a car. The opposite front elbow was the size of a softball and a few vertibrates were also deformed.

JD338

 

[1Shot]

I have taken a number of Pie-ball deer over the years. A number of them had crooked mouths, lower jaw point left and upper point right kind of crooked. They had humps on their noses that made them look like a goat. Their front legs were shorter than their back legs. The most messed up deer I have ever taken was this year. I took a big body buck??? that had two spike antlers coming out of each root. They were not forked but two separate antlers on both sides. They were 4 to 6 inches long. Looked like a pitch fork with a space in the middle. Here is the weirder part. "IT" had (to make it sound good) a male reproductive organ as well as an udder. There are a LOT of deer where I hunt in NC and they in breed and this causes this weirdness. We had a crop damage program for 25 years were we took 100 deer each year off the farm and for the past 10 years we have not seen many Pie-ball deer and the weird one I took this year was the only really messed up one I can recall lately.

 

[DrMike]

1Shot,

That is just spooky! :shock: That sounds more like some serious genetic damage rather than being accounted for through inbreeding. Are there nuclear plants nearby? Did Homer Simpson feed those deer?

 

[Hegland]

Very similar to JD's story; this one had a 125-grain four blade broadhead lodged in his left shoulder.

My first bow kill. :mrgreen:
View attachment IMG_0052.jpg
View attachment IMG_0054.jpg

 

[jmad_81]

When I was in high school a friend and I shot a 24" velvet forked horn mule deer buck. It didn't have and testicals.

I shot a cow elk on a damage hunt that came back from the butcher with a broadhead and three inches of shaft taped to one of the packages. She didn't show any sign of being wounded when I shot her.

Other than that they have all been pretty normal.

 

[SJB358]

Haven't shot any really weird deer or other animals. Those are some neat pictures though! Scotty

 

[Elkman]

I really take few pictures, this fall I shot a cow elk that was missing one of her ivories, most of her top back teeth, her lower front teeth were worn to the gums, and the lower back teeth were very thin and pointed. She was fat had a calf, and good to eat, but not many seasons left in her. She would have probably starved to death in a few years.

 

[Anonymous]

Here's my office eye candy. It gets a lot of double takes.

 

[SJB358]

Justin, WOW. What is that animal? It looks like a mystical story book creature I would read about to my daughter! Scotty

 

[Anonymous]

It's a 4 horn sheep, or Jacob's Sheep. Pretty ugly.

 

[DrMike]

Ugly? Not to another four-horn sheep!

 

[6mm Remington]

I'd hate to bump into that in a dark alley some night!

 

[SJB358]

That is a cool animal. Where do you hunt them at? Scotty