Gary Engberg Outdoors

gengberg October 26th, 2009

The wide-antlered deer known by several names, including Jim, Two-footer and Wide Boy, has scored the widest inside antler spread in Wisconsin and fourth highest in the United States, said Mike Evenson, who pulled the deer’s skull and rack from a creek bed in November.Evenson, who lives in Rice Lake but hunts in Rusk County, found no deer body or bones at the site.

Evenson knew the deer’s inside spread, at 30 and 5/8 inches between the antler beams was something special. He also knew about the deer long before he found the skull and antlers.

It seems everyone in the area a few miles southwest of Weyerhaeuser knew about the wide-antlered buck.

“It was crazy out there,” said Evenson, who ghost wrote a letter for the buck, basically saying that some folks’ ruthless pursuits of the deer were, in the end, fruitless.

“It’s a trophy deer that died of old age,” said Evenson, who last week received official scoring from the Boone and Crockett Club.

Evenson said that Boone and Crockett came up with the same inside spread measurement of 30 and 5/8 inches. That’s the widest whitetail deer spread in Wisconsin, said Evenson, and puts the deer at fourth place nationally, behind whitetail bucks from Kansas (two) and Maine.

Evenson found the skull and antlers Nov. 29, the second Saturday of last fall’s deer gun season.

“I was just starting a deer drive, making a big circle. I saw one side of the antlers sticking straight up from a puddle in a dry creek. The other end was stuck in the frozen mud,” said Evenson, who hasn’t revealed the exact location of the find.

The deer had been seen, hunted, chased, photographed and video-taped for years, said Evenson. For 9 years the same deer reportedly showed up on trail cameras and-in winter- at feeders at residences along Hwy. W.

“It was almost like a pet. It was an interesting and smart deer” said local resident Ron Zahorski, who said the deer came to his back yard over several winters.

As the list of hunters who missed the buck with guns, bows and muzzleloaders grew, so did the stories of Two-footer’s cunning and ability to survive. The deer once had an arrow in it and was grazed by a bullet.

Because the lower jaw was missing when the skull was found, the deer can’t be aged through traditional deer aging methods.

According to Evenson’s report on the deer, the buck’s ability to avoid hunters was aided by its use of an 800-acre hiding spot at a former Boy Scout camp where hunting is not allowed.

However, the deer trailed outside of that sanctuary and several hunters took their shots. One hunter who lived in the area said he knocked the deer down with a gun shot, and photographs confirmed that the buck had been hit in the shoulder blade, said Evenson.

Injury-caused duress probably led to the deer growing a drop tine the following year, Evenson speculates.

The chase to bag the trophy buck reached a frenzy at times, said Evenson, including a search by someone in a helicopter. There was increased deer shining at night. Some of the attention was advanced by the posting of videos of the buck on the Internet.

“Jim (the buck) even had the intelligence to hide in long grass with a bow hunter 70 to 80 yards away on a fence line. [Jim] didn’t take off until the hunter was on his way home,” said Evenson.

Jeffrey Senske signed the Boone and Crockett Club scoring papers for what will be known as the Kadlec Buck, named after Evenson’s son Aimsley Kadlec. The deer scored 166 and 5/8 net.

But it’s the spread that is record length and made Two-footer’s nickname actually an underestimation, not an exaggeration.

Of course, antlers of Two-footer’s size have monetary value. Evenson has had the rack at various sport shows and has been in contact with Bass Pro Shops.

When the 2009 deer seasons begin in September, Two-footer will no longer be chased. But his legend will surely live on.

• Hunting , Deer , Bow Hunting , Photos , Wildlife