Simpson County hunter takes 11-pointer with strange tine.
Michael Palamone is resigned to the fact that his Simpson County monster buck won’t reach Boone & Crockett status, but he shrugs it off with a now popular adage.
“What you gonna do,” he said, laughing. “It’s not like I’d want to give up that unique point.”
No, and neither would any sane deer hunter.
“That unique point” is a 14-inch sticker emerging from the hairline just above the right eye.
It looks like an extra main beam, a smaller version of the nearly 24-inch right main beam that rises above it. It has the same shape, curves and follows nearly the same path.
It wasn’t until the antlers were removed at the taxidermy shop that it became clear the extra point shared the same base.
“It’s 14 inches long, we all know it’s gonna kill me on Boone & Crockett, but I don’t care about that,” said Palamone, a native New Yorker who has lived in New Orleans since 1980 and has hunted at his Simpson County camp for six years. “Take that point away and it’s still a monster buck that stunned everybody who hunts and lives around there in Simpson County. They all look at the antlers and hear about its size, 248 pounds, and they say ‘I never knew anything like that ever lived around here.’”
The buck was aged at 4½ by a taxidermist and will be given a thorough green score later this week.
“It will be interesting to see how it scores,” said biologist Chad Dacus, the deer program coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. “Very interesting indeed.
“Looking at the photo, it appears to be a non-typical point. An extra main beam like that is rare, but it is not unheard off. I have seen some that you could barely tell which was the true main beam. Some I’ve seen have had their own points. But this one is rare, and what I find oddest about it is the photo from the year before. That point is not there.”
Palamone said the hunt for the big buck started in the fall of 2011 when the buck, a smaller but impressive main frame 8 at the time without the strange tine, stepped in front of a trail cam.
“There’s a sticker point on the left side off one of the tines, and that’s the identifier,” Palamone said. “We’re 95 percent sure it’s the same deer and the taxidermist said there was no doubt.”
But there’s no hint of the weird point.
“It is strange that it goes that far in life without it, and then it appears and it jumps out there to 14 inches,” Dacus said. “But there could be an explanation like it may have broken off the year before in the early stages of development and it wasn’t noticeable. Or it could have been something that happened this year during the early stages of antler development, like an injury that caused it to create an odd growth for the first time.
“Whatever the reason, it is an unusual point and it gives the buck a characteristic that is its own. That’s always a good thing.”
Palamone said that the original trail cam photo from 2011 sent several of his club’s 23 members on a mission to get the buck.
“There were about five of us who started hunting him hard, a small group that shares photos and stories,” he said. “We all started trying to get on him but we never did. Nobody ever saw the buck while they were hunting.
“Then this year, it shows up again and it’s bigger and we started again. We started trying to pattern it, looking for its trails and stuff. We put up stands where we thought it was moving, but we never saw it. I hunted it all through archery season … man, getting that buck with a bow would have been a beautiful thing. But I never saw it. We never saw it.”
Trail cam photos showed the buck was still hanging around so the group of hunters kept hanging stands around what they felt was its home range.
“We kept putting up stands everywhere we thought we might get it,” Palamone said. “We had climbers and ladders all over. And the funny thing is the stand I finally got him from was a ladder stand that was wide open. My buddy built it on a new food plot, one we planted for the first time this year.
“But the stand didn’t have any cover around it at all. I went there that morning and was late getting there, almost sunrise. I mean there was no cover and I was wide open. I got on my phone and texted my buddy ‘I feel naked.’ But I was there so I decided to hunt.”
It was decision that paid off, big time.
“He was the first deer I saw,” Palamone said. “I heard something rummaging through the leaves, you know, the kind of sound that usually turns out to be just a squirrel or a opossum or a raccoon or something. I kept hearing it for a while and then I turned and I saw the antlers moving through the woods.
“The deer was like 30 yards from me when I first heard it and saw it, but was moving through the trees and brush. It kept walking until it was about 85 to 90 yards away and I got a good look at the antlers and I knew it was a shooter so I got started getting ready. And then it took a right turn and started heading right toward the food plot.”
Palamone got ready and was on the buck when it got to the timber at the edge of the food plot. Of course, the deer wasn’t going to make it that easy. Big bucks rarely do.
“No, he didn’t just walk into the food plot,” Palamone said. “It stopped and stood behind a tree and then it finally stuck its head out. Then he took another step and about half the deer was visible. He stopped again and I looked him over in the scope and had a good shot so I decided to take the shot and not take a chance.”
Palamone put the scope of his .30-06 right behind the visible front shoulder and squeezed off the shot.
“He bucked and jumped and took off across the food plot,” Palamone said. “I bolted in another round and got ready if I needed to shoot again but by then he had made it across to the bottom end of the food plot where it falls off into this bottom and I couldn’t see him anymore.
“But I heard a crash and I knew he was down. I walked down there and he had made it to the bottom to the dropoff and I guess that’s where he died because I found him down in the bottom where it fell.”
The killing shot was high on the shoulder and put the big buck down, but it was tough.
“I turned him over and there was no exit wound,” Palamone said. “When we got him on the cleaning rack, I found the bullet caught between the outer fat layer and the skin. He was a big, big ol’ buck.”
With an extra antler to boot.
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