After soccer practice on Saturday, my Dad and I took Reid to meet Rufus. Rufus is a ten year old monster buck that has been raised by a family since the day his was born. I really do not know the back story on how the family got him, but he has been well taken care for and seems to have a pretty good life. He is used to promote wildlife education and conservation at outdoor shows and what not. Saturday, he was on display at Adel Outfitters, so we made the hour trip to check him out and do a little shopping in preparation for hunting season.
As you can see, Rufus is doing pretty well in his old age. He does very well around kids and lets them feed and pet him. Reid gave him some green grass that was growing next to the building.
Here is the impressive picture. These are Rufus's sheds mounted on other deer for all to see the difference as a deer ages. He is a great deer at age 4 (first deer on right), but look at what he gets to at age 6 and 7 (move right to left). A true monster!! He starts going down hill a little at 8 and 9 and is even smaller this year at the ripe old age of ten. It was pretty cool to see and we had a great day.
I know I have said before that I think it is great to manage your property for trophy deer, but I have to admit that I would have shot ole' Rufus when he was only a young lad at age 4!!
3 comments:
Very cool. Sounds like a fun day and educational as well.
That's awesome how they displayed all his sheds to show the growth adn decline. And yeah, I would've shot 4 yr old Rufus too! haha
I shared this post with my wildlife professor today after our lab on how to measure a deer on the Boone & Crocket scale. He enjoyed it, so I figured that I would let you know!
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