Big Buck Tales

Joseph Shields Buck

Joseph Shields Buck

By Mike Handley

If five antler scorers were to lay their tapes on the antlers of a buck hanging over the late Logan Sewell's mantel in Vidalia, La., they might very well come up with five different tallies. That's because the non-typical rack carries what many would consider as multiple main beams, and the choice of a typical mainframe will affect spread, symmetry and circumferences. Without lapsing into a full discussion of how antlers are scored, suffice it to say that the Boone and Crockett Club's system is based on the premise that whitetails, by nature's design, should have symmetrical antlers.

See BTR Scoresheet


Buckmasters, of course, dismisses that notion. If the buck grew it, the nation's largest deer hunting organization scores it. Thus, compared to getting a fair and accurate B&C score for the Louisiana buck, determining its BTR score was almost child's play.

Even if veteran BTR scorers have differing opinions, the results aren't likely to change very much. The biggest difference would be the placement of individual measurements on the scoresheet itself.

That's why Sewell, who acquired the mount from Lessley Dale, his father-in-law, agreed to have the antlers measured by Buckmasters.

Sewell's father-in-law did not harvest the deer. The late Dr. Joseph Shields of Natchez, Miss., who was hunting across the Mississippi River in Louisiana's Concordia Parish, took it in 1947. The 74-year-old doctor was still-hunting on the Lucerna (cotton) Plantation, which is still in the family's hands, with his trusted 20-gauge pump shotgun. Sewell had heard many versions of the story, but the one he shared was told by Ralph Shields Jr., Dr. Shields' nephew.

"Ordinarily, (Dr. Shields) loaded his shotgun so the first shot was a slug, which would get the deer wounded ... And the second shot was buckshot," said Sewell, a retired banker. "On this occasion, he'd misloaded. He loaded the buckshot to be the first shot and the slug to be the second shot.

"I'm told from reliable sources that he shot the deer at fairly close range – but not real close – one time with buckshot and did not (fatally) hit the deer," Sewell explained. "The deer ran toward him, fortunately, and then he shot him with a slug and downed him."

Later, when Shields was back at camp with the buck strapped across the hood of a Jeep, onlookers said he was not particularly enamored with the strange set of antlers. And besides, taxidermists were almost unheard of in that part of the South. Lessley Dale was there, too, and he could not believe that the doctor wasn't going to have the head mounted.

"Other people were hunting with him (that day)," said Sewell. "In fact, my wife's father was hunting with him at the time. He picked up the deer ... Apparently there was some conversation about what (Shields) was going to do with the head. He said he thought he'd just cut it off and mount the horns." With that in mind, the hunter had already severed the head right below the chin.

"My father-in-law said 'You mean you're not going to mount that deer?' (Shields) said no. He said, 'Well, I'll mount him for you. Let me have him and mount him,'" Sewell continued. "And (Shields) said, 'Well you can just have him. Here's the head. Do what you want to with it!'"

So Lessley Dale, who was impressed with the unique antlers, did just that. He sent the head to Schwartz & Co. in Missouri, they used a different cape, and the mount eventually found its way into Dale's home. Now it hangs in the home of his daughter, Renza Sewell. She and her late husband had the antlers remounted.

Mr. Sewell said the antlers were not the only impressive thing about the Shields Buck. It was also unusually large for that part of the Louisiana Delta. And the deer might not ever have been weighed had his father-in-law not resorted to extreme measures to bring it to the scale.

"My father-in-law was very interested in knowing what he weighed, but he waited too late," said Sewell. "They'd already cut the deer up - cut the hindquarters off and so forth. So he took all the parts of the deer ... He took 'em and weighed each separate piece, added it up, and it (totaled) a little over 400 pounds.

"If you look at that picture of that deer draped across the hood of that jeep, you'll see what a monstrous deer it was," he said, referring to the one vintage photograph of Shields with the buck he thought was a freak.

Copyright 2024 by Buckmasters, Ltd.

Copyright 2020 by Buckmasters, Ltd