Post by 4pointer on Jan 27, 2007 7:08:55 GMT -5
Just got this in a E~MAIL.
Michael A. Sawyers
Cumberland Times-News
CUMBERLAND — Somewhere there is a bowhunter who a year or two ago shot at a buck in the Christie Road area east of Cumberland and watched it walk away with an arrow sticking out of its head.
The hunter was likely shaking his own head, wondering how a deer could take such a hit and escape.
Jonathan Leith has the answer. In fact, he had the deer.
On the last day of the recent Maryland firearms season, Leith was hunting on his parents’ property when a bunch of deer, including an 8-point, came running into range.
“For a second I considered letting the deer go so it would get bigger, but then I thought that if I did that someone else would shoot it anyway so I shot,” said Leith, a former Cumberlander who now lives in Carroll County.
The buck was heavy. Leith estimated it field dressed at 150 pounds. The antlers have a spread of about 14 inches.
“It wasn’t the kind of buck I wanted to have mounted so I decided to make a European mount,” Leith said. The European mount is one in which the top part of the skull is kept intact and cleaned of all hide and flesh.
Had Leith decided to simply saw the antlers from the skull, as is often done, he would not have made an amazing discovery.
Inside the skull, having penetrated just below the right eye socket and into the honey-combed nasal sinus area, was a portion of an aluminum arrow.
An X-ray of the animal’s head revealed that the three-blade broadhead remained intact.
“When I first got to it, there was no physical evidence that the deer had an arrow in it,” Leith said. “The skin wasn’t broken, there was no pus pocket. The eye appeared to be normal.”
The arrow appears to have the markings of an Easton XX75 arrow with that company’s camouflage pattern.
Jim Mullan, a wildlife biologist for the Maryland Wildlife and Heritage Service, used the lower jaw of the deer, which Leith had kept, to determine that the buck was 2.5 years old, which means that the buck was exposed to three bow seasons before it was harvested by Leith.
A nick mark on the antlers, which are lost and regrown annually, could mean that the buck was shot in 2006. Mullan said, though, that it could not be determined precisely in which season the arrow struck.
In spite of the intrusion, the buck had been able to prosper physically. Obviously the arrow had not impaired normal operation of the chewing or swallowing functions.
Leith said he’ll make up a wooden wall mount for his buck of a lifetime
Here are the pis's
Hunter finds arrow, broadhead in skull of healthy 8-point buck
Michael A. Sawyers
Cumberland Times-News
CUMBERLAND — Somewhere there is a bowhunter who a year or two ago shot at a buck in the Christie Road area east of Cumberland and watched it walk away with an arrow sticking out of its head.
The hunter was likely shaking his own head, wondering how a deer could take such a hit and escape.
Jonathan Leith has the answer. In fact, he had the deer.
On the last day of the recent Maryland firearms season, Leith was hunting on his parents’ property when a bunch of deer, including an 8-point, came running into range.
“For a second I considered letting the deer go so it would get bigger, but then I thought that if I did that someone else would shoot it anyway so I shot,” said Leith, a former Cumberlander who now lives in Carroll County.
The buck was heavy. Leith estimated it field dressed at 150 pounds. The antlers have a spread of about 14 inches.
“It wasn’t the kind of buck I wanted to have mounted so I decided to make a European mount,” Leith said. The European mount is one in which the top part of the skull is kept intact and cleaned of all hide and flesh.
Had Leith decided to simply saw the antlers from the skull, as is often done, he would not have made an amazing discovery.
Inside the skull, having penetrated just below the right eye socket and into the honey-combed nasal sinus area, was a portion of an aluminum arrow.
An X-ray of the animal’s head revealed that the three-blade broadhead remained intact.
“When I first got to it, there was no physical evidence that the deer had an arrow in it,” Leith said. “The skin wasn’t broken, there was no pus pocket. The eye appeared to be normal.”
The arrow appears to have the markings of an Easton XX75 arrow with that company’s camouflage pattern.
Jim Mullan, a wildlife biologist for the Maryland Wildlife and Heritage Service, used the lower jaw of the deer, which Leith had kept, to determine that the buck was 2.5 years old, which means that the buck was exposed to three bow seasons before it was harvested by Leith.
A nick mark on the antlers, which are lost and regrown annually, could mean that the buck was shot in 2006. Mullan said, though, that it could not be determined precisely in which season the arrow struck.
In spite of the intrusion, the buck had been able to prosper physically. Obviously the arrow had not impaired normal operation of the chewing or swallowing functions.
Leith said he’ll make up a wooden wall mount for his buck of a lifetime
Here are the pis's
