Deer Antler Weirdness
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 2:04 am
Okay, here's the story:
We had an outdoors sportsmens' show in Eugene this weekend. Hunting, fishing, camping, boating, they even had a stage presentation of exotic wild cats in one hall. So I was in one of the showcase rooms, checking out the display of antlered game trophies and shed antlers. Mostly deer, elk and pronghorn, with the VERY occasional bighorn sheep.
One thing that struck me: it may just be this particular show, but there are some WEIRD antler configurations coming out of the woods.
For example, the Star-of-the-Show elk mount, the one they had in the promotional material. This is a 100-year-old rack that's been carefully preserved because of its uniqueness. It came off a bull in Wyoming. Let me describe...
An elk's antler comes out of the head, travels up in the main beam, and ends in a big, thick, swordlike tine called the Royal Point. Then the main beam branches again and may be decorated with one to four or even five points called the Super-Royals. These are either straight back or canted slightly inwards.
But on this guy...the beam came up in a Royal and then...the beam branched, but the similarity to an elk ended there. The Super-Royals grew not up, but DOWN, and there were TEN of them. Not only that, they were heavy enough to twist the beam down like a sapling bent over, and the tines were palmated, like a moose or fallow deer. And they didn't bend inwards to form a basket, but drooped outwards. I stood there staring the hell out of it and all I could say was, "That — is — awesome." Not in the present-day useage, either, I meant awesome in the original sense, awe-inspiring. Awe, as in slightly intimidating. That's how freaky that set of antlers was.
There was another rack, unmounted, from a blacktail deer. I'd say it was even more freaky than the elk's, but it was, naturally, smaller. The main beam of a blacktail deer is forked, like a mule deer, but this one was twisted down and around, like a ram's horns, and would have curled round the ear butts.
There were other racks, mostly Pope & Young (taken with archery equipment) and Boone & Crockett (firearms), some Safari Club International. The first two scoring systems have two divisions: Typical and Non-Typical. Typical is your classic, "Prince of the Forest from Bambi" rack, no weird points or knobs or drop clubs, twisted main beams or palmations. That's Non-Typical. They have a different scoring system because a non-typical rack can have dozens of extra points sticking out at weird angles, branching off the tines, etc. But I noticed that most of the racks that are classified as Typical were actually non-typical. Not as freaky as the palmated Awesome Elk or the Ram's-Horn Blacktail, but definitely a whole bunch of extra points sticking out at all angles.
I used to make up a "shaman's tale" that a deer's power resided in his antlers, and if his power was great, it warped his antlers while they were growing and that's how non-typical antlers get developed. I've seen pronghorns with multiple paddles, or bowed-out horns, and oryx with curly ram-horn configurations, but I've never seen a strange set on fallow deer, moose or any of the wild sheep. As for caribou...well, they're ALL non-typical, there's nothing boring about any of those guys's racks. Even the girls have 'em...
We had an outdoors sportsmens' show in Eugene this weekend. Hunting, fishing, camping, boating, they even had a stage presentation of exotic wild cats in one hall. So I was in one of the showcase rooms, checking out the display of antlered game trophies and shed antlers. Mostly deer, elk and pronghorn, with the VERY occasional bighorn sheep.
One thing that struck me: it may just be this particular show, but there are some WEIRD antler configurations coming out of the woods.
For example, the Star-of-the-Show elk mount, the one they had in the promotional material. This is a 100-year-old rack that's been carefully preserved because of its uniqueness. It came off a bull in Wyoming. Let me describe...
An elk's antler comes out of the head, travels up in the main beam, and ends in a big, thick, swordlike tine called the Royal Point. Then the main beam branches again and may be decorated with one to four or even five points called the Super-Royals. These are either straight back or canted slightly inwards.
But on this guy...the beam came up in a Royal and then...the beam branched, but the similarity to an elk ended there. The Super-Royals grew not up, but DOWN, and there were TEN of them. Not only that, they were heavy enough to twist the beam down like a sapling bent over, and the tines were palmated, like a moose or fallow deer. And they didn't bend inwards to form a basket, but drooped outwards. I stood there staring the hell out of it and all I could say was, "That — is — awesome." Not in the present-day useage, either, I meant awesome in the original sense, awe-inspiring. Awe, as in slightly intimidating. That's how freaky that set of antlers was.
There was another rack, unmounted, from a blacktail deer. I'd say it was even more freaky than the elk's, but it was, naturally, smaller. The main beam of a blacktail deer is forked, like a mule deer, but this one was twisted down and around, like a ram's horns, and would have curled round the ear butts.
There were other racks, mostly Pope & Young (taken with archery equipment) and Boone & Crockett (firearms), some Safari Club International. The first two scoring systems have two divisions: Typical and Non-Typical. Typical is your classic, "Prince of the Forest from Bambi" rack, no weird points or knobs or drop clubs, twisted main beams or palmations. That's Non-Typical. They have a different scoring system because a non-typical rack can have dozens of extra points sticking out at weird angles, branching off the tines, etc. But I noticed that most of the racks that are classified as Typical were actually non-typical. Not as freaky as the palmated Awesome Elk or the Ram's-Horn Blacktail, but definitely a whole bunch of extra points sticking out at all angles.
I used to make up a "shaman's tale" that a deer's power resided in his antlers, and if his power was great, it warped his antlers while they were growing and that's how non-typical antlers get developed. I've seen pronghorns with multiple paddles, or bowed-out horns, and oryx with curly ram-horn configurations, but I've never seen a strange set on fallow deer, moose or any of the wild sheep. As for caribou...well, they're ALL non-typical, there's nothing boring about any of those guys's racks. Even the girls have 'em...