From my in Dec. 19, 2013 column in The News Journal.
Just about every deer hunter dreams of harvesting a once-in-a-lifetime, wall-hanging monster buck that he or she can discuss with other hunters for years to come. On Friday, November 22, Mark Petriccione, 50, of Newark harvested such a monster buck in Hockessin.
Sort of.
Petriccione, who has been hunting for more than thirty years, opted to bow hunt deer on the morning of November 22 although Delaware’s shotgun season was open. About thirty minutes into his hunt, he noticed a small herd of deer moving behind his tree stand. He counted eight does filing toward him and soon realized that the ninth deer was a big-rack buck.
Or so he thought.
With hopes of getting a shot at the tall-antlered monster, Petriccione let the eight does pass his stand – one by one. After the final doe passed, he drew his bow, ran through his mental checklist of pre-shot preparations, and said to himself, “Just don’t blow this.” When the big deer was fifteen yards in front of his stand, Petriccione aimed for the monster’s vitals and let his arrow fly.
He didn’t blow it.
According to Petriccione, he “concentrated on the body, not the horns,” when he shot, so he wouldn’t let his nerves ruin his aim. It wasn’t until 40 minutes after the shot that Petriccione and friend and hunting mentor Jerry Cherico found the deer and realized it was extraordinary. “Jerry was the first one to the deer, and he said ‘Oh my God, this thing’s in velvet’,” Petriccione said.
Male whitetail deer (bucks) typically shed their antlers each year around late December through February and generate new antlers from late spring through late summer. During new antler growth, the antlers are covered in a velvety, skin-like material that is usually shed in late summer to reveal hardened white antlers. Therefore, it is rare to encounter a deer ‘in velvet’ in late November.
Late-season velvet, however, was not the only extraordinary trait of Petriccione’s deer.
“When I went to gut it, I realized it had no testicles, a very small penis, and nipples that hung down,” Petriccione said. “It also had a short tail, a thin neck and a long snout like a doe.”
Like with humans, strange things occur in deer biology, so there are several possible explanations for the physical characteristics of Petriccione’s deer. The deer could have been a hermaphrodite, if indeed it possessed both male and female reproductive organs. It may have been a doe with antlers. It was possibly a buck that severely injured its testes. Or it could have been a buck with cryptorchidism, a condition in which the testicles remain in the abdominal cavity and never descend into the scrotum causing decreased testosterone production and leading to velvet antlers that never shed, abnormal antler growth, little or no reproductive drive or ability, and decreased muscle mass.
Joe Rogerson, deer and furbearer biologist with Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife, said Cherico contacted him about the deer Petriccione harvested. “I don’t recall another hunter contacting me with a deer like this in the eight years that I’ve been here; it’s definitely rare,” Rogerson said.” After listening to Cherico’s description of the deer, Rogerson believes Petriccione’s deer suffered from cryptorchidism. “I had a feeling there were testes that were small or still inside the abdominal cavity,” he said.
Chip West, president of the Delaware Chapter of the Quality Deer Management, agrees with Rogerson and said he knew of a deer with similar traits harvested in October in Sussex County. According to West, Petriccione’s deer “had to be a cryptorchid to get antlers with bases that big because it had to get testosterone from somewhere.” He added that the deer being a doe with antlers was unlikely since true does with antlers usually only have small, spindly antlers.
Regardless of the true gender of the deer, Petriccione knows it is something special. He estimates it to be about 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 years old and believes it weighed about 185 pounds. Its rack has eight good points, 13-inch G1s, three nubs sticking out of the left side of its head, and an inside spread measurement of 20 inches. What’s more, the bases of the antlers measured 7 ¼ inches each.
“I feel totally honored and surprised,” said Petriccione. “It’s an incredible animal, and I am just in awe.”
Steven Kendus’ Hunter’s Journal appears bi-weekly in The News Journal. Kendus is the author of Hunting The First State: A Guide to Delaware Hunting. Follow Kendus at www.HuntingTheFirstState.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Contact him at skendus@HuntingTheFirstState.com.