A Passion for Deer Antlers: From Hunting to Collecting to Crafting
ANTLERS
DEER HUNTING IN MINNESOTA IS ONE OF THE
DEER
It occupies thousands of hours of planning, hiking, standbuilding, shooting and travel. It consumes millions of dollars in gear, clothing, lodging, leases, taxes, fuel and food. More Minnesotans deer hunt than attend all home games of the Minnesota Vikings. For Dale Livingood, hunting became a passion at an early age. He moved up from the Twin Cities eight years ago to live closer to the outdoors. He calls rural Crosslake home and doesn’t have to venture far from his front door. Those early years of deer hunting in Minnesota and Wisconsin, plus later trips to Alberta and Saskatchewan, kept him searching for bigger and bigger bucks. “A big buck is truly one of God’s incredible creatures,” he said, “It’s the only species on the planet that can grow such massive, unique and impressive racks.” They live in such varied terrain from the deserts in the south to the deep woods of Canada. “People love to eat them; they are a joy to watch as they gracefully slip through the woods or even through flower gardens,” Livingood said. He has no trouble seeing the beauty of whitetails every day. When he awakes, hanging on his walls are replicas of some of the largest whitetail racks in the world. He has the “Hole in the Horn” buck, a deer shot in Ohio that is the current No,. 2-ranked buck at 328 Boone and Crocket inches (a scoring system used to measure and compare the size, mass and scope of a d deer’s antlers). On another wall is the N No. 4 “Scott Dexter” buck aat 295 points. He also has tthe No. 1 pen-raised deer iin the world at 386 Boone aand Crocket inches. And, tthat’s not all, his replicas include a set of palmated antlers that scored 238, OLDEST AND MOST TRADITIONAL SPORTS.
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Photo provided by Jim Kalkofen
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