Joe Duggan: One hunter's happy ending
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Anyone with even a passing interest in deer hunting knows about the curious and sad trend of antler theft.
Given the outrageous value attached to unique trophy racks, money must motivate people to steal antlers. In case you haven’t heard, we’re talking six figures for record-setting deer gear.
Who says market hunting has been outlawed?
Anyway, given the fact that antlers are like fingerprints and word of these thefts spreads over the Internet like a virus, moving a really spectacular set on the black market would seem especially difficult.
Could that mean many antler thieves are motivated by envy? Do they steal to satisfy some twisted need to claim another’s trophy as their own?
If so, how pathetic.
Now here’s a twist on the old tale — a bowhunter who got his missing rack back.
It started Oct. 31 when Carl Ensor, a 52-year-old carpenter from Crete, was bowhunting at Olive Creek State Recreation Area, a public hunting and fishing area southwest of Lincoln.
Late in the morning, Ensor noticed a buck chasing a doe in his direction. He saw the whitetail buck had an odd rack distinguished by two skinny points on one side and four thicker points on the other.
He let his arrow fly while the
buck was still running, an ill-advised — some would say unethical — shot given the high chance of simply wounding the deer. The arrow struck the deer “right behind the lungs,” Ensor said.
Not surprisingly, he couldn’t find it before sunset.
Ensor may have made a questionable shot, but he did the right thing and kept looking.
He spent hours on an unsuccessful search the next day. Still he didn’t give up.
Finally, on the third day, he found the deer about three-quarters of a mile from where he shot it. The animal still had his arrow in it, he said.
But the antlers were gone.
They had been sawed off.
Apparently the same gumption that motivated Ensor to find his deer also motivated him to find the antlers.
He called the newspaper.
He printed out fliers and posted them in area bars.
He even put fliers on tree stands belonging to other hunters in the area.
Two days after distributing the fliers, he got a call. The voice asked him to describe the rack. Then the caller asked Ensor to meet at Olive Creek.
Ensor met the guy at the appointed time. Turned out it was another bowhunter who found one of Ensor’s fliers on his stand.
The rack indeed belonged to the deer Ensor shot.
Not much was said during the meeting, Ensor said.
Afterward, he wasn’t sure he could legally possess the rack of a deer that wasn’t checked in. So he called a conservation officer, who told him to tag the deer and take the now ripe carcass to an official check station.
Ensor followed the officer’s directions and got the deer tagged. Now he was legal. He later disposed of the carcass.
Turns out, the guy who cut off the antlers may have violated the game law, said Conservation Officer Murray Johnson.
If you stumble across shed antlers, they’re legal to keep, he said. If you stumble across a dead buck and there are no signs that it was killed by a human hunter, it’s legal to claim the antlers, he added.
Otherwise, leave the deer intact and keep walking
“Anytime there’s any indication the deer has been shot, it’s hands off unless you shot the deer,” the officer said.
In the case of Ensor’s deer, no investigation was launched to determine whether a violation occurred.
Ensor appreciated getting the antlers back, so it suited him that the other hunter wasn’t given a ticket.
“I’m the one who shot it and I’m just happy I got the rack,” he said. “It is my trophy; even though it may not be perfect, it’s the deer I took.”
All’s well that ends well.
Still, it’s hard not to wonder if Ensor’s phone would have rung had the missing antlers been a 160-class Pope and Young. Ensor thought about that himself.
“I think if it was even on both sides, I don’t think he would have given it to me,” he said.
He’s probably right.
If so, how pathetic.
Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.
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