Bucks apparently locked in winter fight appear after thaw

Moline, Ill. — One point hunters all agree on: Sometimes nature plays a role in a deer’s demise, and sometimes that role seems cruel.

Dick and Tootie Brodersen, who live south of the Quad Cities on a home overlooking a 5-acre pond, recently learned that lesson.

“We see lots of deer, many more does than bucks, year-round,” said Dick Brodersen, who enjoys observing deer, turkeys and the many other critters on his land. “I don’t hunt, but some relatives occasionally hunt on our land.”

Early this spring, as winter finally loosened its grip, the Brodersens noticed something unusual on the surface of their pond.

“I saw what looked to be a hump in the melting ice,” Dick Brodersen said. “As I walked closer there were two humps. Getting as close as I could, the humps were dead deer – two bucks that had floated to the surface – and their antlers were locked together.

“We got a rope, tied it on the deer and pulled them out of the pond with the 4-wheeler. Their bodies were in perfect condition – no wounds. One of the buck’s antlers had 13 points, the other 9 points.”

In wake of the find, Dick Brodersen has developed a theory.

“I think the bucks were fighting on a narrow peninsula of land that protrudes into the pond,” he said. “The side slopes from the top of the peninsula to the water are kind of steep. I think in their fighting, the bucks slid down the slope and into the pond that had yet froze over, got exhausted and died or drowned. The pond froze over that night, it snowed and covered their grave ‘til ice-out.”

Husband and wife pulled as hard as they could, but were unable to get the antlers apart, so they used the 4-wheeler and rope to get them apart. The Brodersens called the DNR, and a CPO issued a salvage tag and the heads are in process of becoming European mounts.

“We hope to get the antlers back together in the same position we found them in and mount them together on a wall,” he said.

-Outdoor News