When Doug Laird of Russellville, Missouri, talks about the deer he shot in 2014, pronouns appear to jump the tracks.
"A big buck came through at 9 a.m., about an hour before I normally leave the woods," he says. "It had a small doe with it, and an 8-pointer was chasing her. The 8-pointer stopped broadside, right in a clearing. I put the crosshairs on it and thought, It ain't quite big enough. I'll give him another year or two.
"The big one and the little doe came back through there right before dark," he continues.
Both deer were in the wide open, and he shot the doe.
"The doe had a little doe with her," he repeated. "Of course, I thought it was a buck. It was about a 65- or 70-yard shot, and it dropped off in this ditch afterward. I didn't know if I knocked her in it, or if she just jumped."
Confused yet?
Here's what happened: Doug saw three deer from his stand that day in Moniteau County. One was the "too-small" 8-point buck to which he gave a pass. The other two were does, including the deer with the bigger rack, the one he shot.
He shot an antlered doe, the largest ever recorded. He hopes she'll be included in three record books: those published by Buckmasters, the Boone and Crockett Club and Guinness.
Few people heard about Doug's accomplishment until he brought the mounted 15-pointer to the Monster Buck Classic in neighboring Kansas a couple of months ago. He wanted to know, for the record, how much she scored.
The answer, as far as we're concerned, is 199 7/8 inches (spread included).
Doug did not field-dress the deer, which is a chore when you have only one arm. Thus, he had no idea he'd shot a doe until his taxidermist took a knife to her. When they noticed the deer's plumbing, they called the Missouri conservation department, which sent someone to photograph it.
The complete lack of male genitalia wasn't the only jaw-dropper.
"She still had a little milk in her teats," Doug said. "Or that's what it looked like. There was definitely some liquid."
Antlered does are rare, but not as uncommon as other anomalies among whitetails. The landowner shot a 7-point doe off the same ground six years earlier, also hard-antlered. In 2011, five antlered does were harvested (and reported) in Missouri alone.
You can read more about this unique whitetail in the August issue of Rack magazine.
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