This may be the smallest shed whitetail antler ever found. It is 2.88 inches long. That’s a .280 cartridge hull beside it. My brother Lee, the gunmaker, was walking his dog on a late Montana winter day. Snow lay deep through the brush along the lake, so he and the dog walked the only place they could – in a pounded-down deer trail in the snow.
Part way through the walk, there lay the shed spike antler, plainly visible in the hard-packed trail.
Any other place and it never would have been found. Not ever,” Lee said. The antler contrasted well against the white snow background.
No idea what knocked it loose,” he said. “No brush or branches were near enough to knock it loose.
Must have been quite a shock to that buck’s neck muscles when that antler fell off,” he said, tongue firmly wedged in cheek.
He searched a couple of hours hoping to find the other spike, but came up empty. “It would have been a needle-in-a-haystack find,” he said.
