ND drop 2Shelby from North Dakota read one of my articles on drop-tine bucks, in which I wrote:

…it must shoot down from a main beam at least 6 inches—7 to 10 inches is better, for then it becomes what I have deemed the highly regarded “drop club,” a term which is finding its way more and more into the deer-hunting vernacular. Also, the thicker and more massive the tine or club the better. The crowning glory is a couple inches of black, hardened velvet on the bottom of the club. You see that on many of the big drop tines and on all the most impressive ones. The bucks can’t or don’t rub the velvet off the bottom tips. It gives them more character, as if they need it.

Shelby went on to write, “This is my father and the buck he got this year in North Dakota, thought I would share since it has every characteristic you described. This drop tine was 10 inches long with a piece of velvet on the bottom. We were shocked to get a drop tine…we are avid hunters and have never ever seen one in the area we hunt frequently. Needless to say my dad hasn’t quit looking at the horns!”

While I shot my first and only drop tine in Kansas last fall, I am not fully satisfied (happy and thankful after 30 years of trying, but not totally satisfied). Now I have set my sights, and my latest obsession, on a drop-club like this one.

Way to go guys, awesome old buck of a lifetime! Beautiful dark rack and great mass too.