Broken Jaw Buck

[ILBowhunter]

I killed this 11-pt buck (21" inside spread) on November 5th, 2011 in Lee County, Illinois. Upon recovery I noticed it's jaw was offset a bit, which you can see in the photo if you look closely at his nose and mouth area. When the taxidermist caped it he discovered a punture wound under the broken jaw, and he was missing some teeth on the same side. I suspect that he got into quite a tussle with another buck and took a brow tine to the jaw. Moments before I killed him a doe ran into the standing corn in front of my stand hotly pursued by two other good bucks, but not quite as large as the one in the photo. I couldn't get either to stop for a shot. The buck in the photo came in about 60 seconds later and I had to shout at him to get him to stop. I'm wondering if he was following from a distance so as to avoid any confrontation with the others, but still hoping he might get in on the mating action. Needless to say he didn't as he dropped after running 60 yards.

[Deebz]

Nice Buck! Very cool story to go along with it. The first buck I ever shot had a 6-8 inch mostly healed groove down his left side. He also had a broken left main beam... see my avatar... I shot him hot on the heels of a doe as well. They woke me from a bit of a nap and ran circles around my stand for about 15 minutes before I got a shot off.