12/07/2005 -- It came down to the next-to-last-day of my hunting season, but EL10 was mine. It was a long hunt, almost 7 months if you start from the time I first saw him, and ended up with a surprising twist as EL10 was not one buck but TWO bucks almost identical.

It all started when I set out a game camera. Right away in the first part of June, the camera captured a large buck with velvet antlers larger than any of his peers. With more than 20 different bucks showing up regularly, I needed names to keep track of who was who and the biggest soon became EL10.

About once or twice a week, this same deer would pose for a photo. By August 1, it was plain that he was the largest buck around.

By August 15, the first bucks began to shed their velvet and sported smooth polished antlers. EL10 kept his velvet about two weeks longer. Then a camera malfunction lost about a week or so of photos and it wasn’t until September 19 that I saw EL10 again. His antlers were nicely polished and I wanted to shoot HIM.

The muzzleloader season came and went without so much as a peek at EL10. I passed up a couple smaller bucks and does and left the tag unfilled at the end of the week.

I still had bow season so I was hopeful. Many nights and a couple mornings again provided no glimpse of EL10. He was elusive for sure. My dad saw him once from his stand and managed to shoot a tree as the buck passed by (it was a difficult moving shot).

Then finally, Thanksgiving week gave me my first glimpse of the elusive beast. He came out of the woods and was headed towards my stand when the slowly shifting wind took my scent to him. He turned around and was gone.

Five days later, I again saw him. He didn’t come out of the woods until almost dark. He was in the company of two other small bucks and a doe or two and was actually heading my way again. Fate intervened again as a doe coming from the other direction caught my wind and her alarmed sprint away took all the rest of the deer too.

My final day of bow hunting ended when EL10 didn’t show up at the appointed time and place and a smaller buck stood there for about 5 minutes beneath my stand and tempted me too much. I reasoned that I would not hunt deer again with my bow this season and if I shot him, it would take a little pressure off the upcoming shotgun season (In 1 week).

Then the shotgun season dawned with a fresh snowfall. With first light I watched EL10 chasing a doe around the field (a long ways away) and he eventually headed into the neighbor’s woods and I figured I was done again as he would stay there until they ran their deer drive and somebody else would get him.

Just before lunch, our group ran a small drive of our timber and as I was getting in place, I saw my buddy and his son hunkered down in the snow. He was pointing into the trees and when I looked, there was the BUCK. He had big antlers and though I wasn’t sure if he was EL10, he was close enough. As the deer took a few more steps forward, I saw the youngster raise his gun so I held my fire. It would be neat if the boy could harvest the buck, really about as satisfying for me as if I shot it myself, but he didn’t shoot and the buck stopped and stood still. When the buck finally turned and started to run away, I held my fire a moment longer, hoping the boy would shoot, but when no shots rang out, quickly decided to shoot myself. Three shots squirted out of the Browning Gold and the buck was down.

As I walked up to him and started to examine the antlers, it seemed almost impossible, but EL10 was mine. It was tremendously rewarding to have photographed him all summer, hunt him all fall, and finally bag him.

In the evening, we started looking at the summer photos and with the EL10 in hand, it soon became apparent that there was not just one EL10, but TWO of them nearly identical. The earliest summer velvet photos don’t have enough growth to show that detail, but two different sets of the polished antlers taken in October and November show the distinctive difference in the end of the right antler.

The key difference was the fact that my EL10 had just a little 3/4 inch G-4 point on the right main beam and photos clearly showed two different bucks with identical antlers except for the end of the right main beam. The other buck had a more prominent G-4 and just a hint of a G-5 point. For those of you with less antler jargon in your vocabulary, the point(s) I am referring to are the smallest points at the very end of the antler (see the photo).

The two bucks must have been crossing paths over the summer and the mind wonders if its coincidence that created two nearly identical deer, or maybe they were twins, or even had the same daddy. Impossible to tell, of course.

So, the optimist in me realizes if the twin makes it through the deer season, it will be something to look forward to next year when he should be even bigger!