During the 2016 hog deer season Volker Beuttner shot a free-range animal on public land in coastal Gippsland. The stag sported a very unusual set of atypical multi-point antlers. A preliminary measuring indicated that the trophy antlers would make this animal the new Number 1 Hog Deer in the ADA’s Top 50 for the species. This was a rather startling development as K. McCormick’s animal had held this position since 1970, almost 50 years, with a score of 121 Douglas points.
The moment of truth came in mid-June, after the mandatory 60-day drying and stabilisation period when Volker delivered the head to Bairnsdale to be measured by Doug Read, Mark Young and Reini Strecker.
Ninety minutes later, after discussing and very carefully measuring the head, a consensus was reached and the tallying-up began, to see it fall 1/8 Douglas points short of the McCormick trophy and thus being recognised as the new Number 2 in the Top 50 listing. Unfortunately, the stag had broken the tips off a couple of tines, and had this not been the case, the trophy would have picked up enough points to carry it over the line.
To add further interest to the story, a few days prior to Volker taking this deer another hunter obtained a series of trail camera photographs of what is obviously the same multi-tined stag.
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