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 [...]

Our buddy Wren (thanks man!) saw our post on unicorn bucks this morning and sent these pictures. This uni was shot just last December by Jake Steen on his family's ranch in Texas. Wren reports that on early trail-camera photos of this buck, the velvet on the unicorn was so white that for a time they thought it might be a broken-off tine stuck in a cinus cavity. But it turned out to be a true uni. I'm sure jake and everybody has wondered how rare his buck is. Well, as scientist Hellickson, says at least i in 4,000 rare. And with that cool white face coloration and the sticker on the unicorn tine, I'd say 1 in a million! Note the buck's main [...]

A fellow sent this photo and wondered if it was BS or legit. Well, this is either a hoax (tine stuck on deer's nose) or a unicorn. How common or rare is a unicorn buck? Is it possible a tine could grow out of the buck's forehead? Short answer, yes, tines can and do grow there. Mickey Hellickson, one of the top whitetail scientists in the world, says: It is caused by trauma to the frontal bone. This entire region of the skull is capable of growing antler, and if an area of the frontal bone is injured (such as a tine puncture from another buck) the trauma may cause an antler to grow from the injury.  Interestingly, researchers have even experimentally caused antlers to [...]