From Matthew in Kansas, who sends us lots of cool stuff (thanks man!): Three years ago I found the left shed of a buck I called “10-10.” The shed had a pretty good chunk of skull plate attached to the back edge. Fast forward to last season. I shot the buck with a rifle and took him to (a guy) to cape him for me. As he was caping, his knife poked into the skull behind the left beam. Once we cut the skull cap off the head, there was a mass of soft connective tissue and puss in the brain cavity . There was some puss on the outside of the skull too. Once the mass was removed, [...]

From boone-crockett.org: Justin Eckert… watched this mule deer buck during summer scouting sprout his new antler set, until the buck contracted an unknown disease (or was injured) that almost finished him. Somehow this buck made a full recovery to a healthy body weight, but not before the ordeal took its toll (on the rack). Yeah, he ended up growing one of the coolest racks I’ve seen from 2012. Handle Bars! And see how he didn’t lose the velvet on right side? Man, gonna be a killer mount.

Hope you’ve been following our recent string of unicorn buck posts, I believe we’re compiling the most/best info on this unusual topic. Thanks to Wren for this most recent photo from Texas: Mike, this skull was found by a neighbor close to where Jake Steen shot his unicorn buck (scroll down below). Thought the skull would really help folks understand this phenomenon. Yes, it shows the growth as well as I’ve seen it. Scientists say a unicorn tine is caused by trauma to the front facial bone, such as (and most likely I reckon) a tine puncture from another buck. Most of the unicorn tines I’ve seen (in pictures, never seen one in the wild) sprout from the bone area [...]