A friend of mine's son shot his first buck this weekend. It was a spike. 3 things intrigued me about this deer. First, was his size. He was huge for a spike. Typically around here a spike weighs around 80lbs. This one weighed in at 120lbs, live weight. The second thing, was his smell. He stunk worse than any 4 or 5 y/o that i've ever killed. Rutty is an understatement. The third thing, there was blood around the bases of both of his antlers. I've seen this before with mature bucks from fighting, but never from a spike. One of his anlter was broken off about 2" from the base, the other was about 8" long. They had the normal mass of a spike. The broken antler was not fresh. I don't see many dead spikes, so was wondering if any of you had ever seen this? I'm thinking he was a yearling, but i've never seen a yearling weigh 120lbs. Maybe its because of all the acorns. Matt, i hope you weigh in on this.

It was a 1 1/2 yr old cow horn more than likely. I see lots of spikes that size it's not unusual.

I killed one a couple years ago in the TNF chasing a doe. He had 13" spikes.
Acting like a mackdaddy.

Saw a picture of a spike killed somewhere around here last weekend, it looked to be a "mature" deer. The body didn't show any signs of unhealthiness, but the horns were just small spikes like a 1.5 yr old. I don't know any of the details about it, but it just looked like a 3 or 4 yr old deer, I'd guess 130-150 dressed, just a real oddity.

My son killed one last year 8" spikes and 145lbs we figured 4 year old. i'm guessing that you have killed a cull.

I know he's not an old deer. He's a 2 y/o at best. BTW, 4 y/o are usually 180lbs where i'm at, unless there run down.

yep !!!!!

Take the jawbone out and take a pic so we can see it. If you skin the skull, sometimes you can see cranial fracturing or the cranial sutures being split from fighting. I would find strange that a spike could put that much torque on his antlers to do that much cranial damage though. He could have very well done damage to his pedicles though.

Once a spike always a spike.....

I was sitting by a high wall one morning with a ton of privet hedge around it. I had seen a huge buck the morning before and the does were hot. I heard crashing as deer ran around in that privet and then a bunch of grunting like a booner was after them.

I was more than jacked up as three does ran by, only to be disappointed by a dang 3 point. He acted like he was the boss of that place.