’Twas a tiny female fly — not a bullet, broadhead or Buick — that brought down the largest antlered (wild) whitetail in North America last year. And it might have gone undiscovered had a Kansas man not taken a stroll along a creek bank in search of the buck that had dropped off his nephew’s radar.
The deer, while alive, was a well guarded secret within the family. Even now, few people have had the pleasure of ogling its rack.
Photographed regularly by trail camera until late summer 2012, the buck with unfathomable antlers (in velvet at the time) simply disappeared. Clearly, it was either dead or had switched zip codes. Considering that numerous deer throughout the Midwest succumbed to epizootic hemorrhagic disease last year, and since bucks in velvet rarely seek greener pastures unless pressured, it wasn’t difficult to connect the dots.
The deer, in fact, was dead, next to the creek with no holes in it — an almost sure sign that it died from contracting EHD...