As I always said, I don’t think there is an animal to raise more interest between european hunters as roe buck. In the last 10 years, more and more american hunters are visiting Europe especially for roebucks.
Today I am gonna write, not about big trophies, but some special trophies for roebucks.
The first category is the abnormal trophies. What is an abnormal trophy. It is exactly what the name says, a trophy that is not normal, like more antlers, 3 or sometimes even 4 antlers, more points, strange shape of the antlers, stranger it is, better it is. I must admit that I love abnormal roebucks trophies. Maybe too much… If most of European hunters knows about abnormal trophies, very few american hunters knows about our desire to hunt them.
Last year in May, I had a nice 2 couples of hunters from USA, for roebucks, of course. After getting few very nice trophies, we found a very nice abnormal old buck. I whisper the client that it is an very, very nice, old and abnormal buck and he can shot it. In the excitement, I don’t think he heard anything after very, very nice… Well, when you reach the buck after the shot, I was happy and smiling and the hunter was confused to say at least. He expected a very nice buck and he realized he shot an ugly trophy with 3 antlers pointing in different directions :-))
I think he still thinks that I made a judgement mistake and that trophy did not end it up on his wall near the other ones.
If I was going to USA to hunt some white tail bucks, I was not very happy too if I got a strange looking trophy.
So this special category of abnormal trophies applies only for roebucks and mostly for European hunters.
Next category is the perruque trophies. As you probably already know, the roebucks are changing the antlers every year. They loose the antlers starting with November for most of the bucks, old bucks are loosing the antlers by end of October and young ones in December and they will grow another pair of antlers around mid February.
During the early stages of antler development the antlers are soft and covered in fine velvety hair referred to as ‘velvet’. In fact this velvet tissue is the way that nutrients are carried to the antler in order to grow. If allowed to develop further the antler hard and calcifies into the shape known as antlers trophy which hunters appreciate so much. Deer antlers in velvet grow surprisingly fast and can develop up to 2 cm each day.
However on occasion, during the antler growing process, things can go wrong.
Antlers in velvet are more flexible than fully developed antlers, half-fractures during the growing phase can result in some rare and bizarre trophies that are often highly sought after, especially by those trophy hunters from Europe who will often be prepared to spend strong money for a rare and unusual roebuck trophy.
However, the most significant effect on antler growth comes about through the interruption, even temporary interruption, of the hormonal balance. If the supply of male hormone is cut off temporarily the antlers will develop into a perruque trophy also called wig trophy.
Sadly the wig, or perruque will in almost all incidences, eventually be responsible for the buck’s death.
Last category is the spotted roebucks. If first two categories are referring to the antlers, this one is about the skin of the buck. A spotted roebuck it is like an Indian horse, like the ones they have in Winnetou movie, I am sorry but I don’t know how to explain better. The skin of the deer have to have white spots.
Pay attention, the skin doesn’t have to be entire white. That is an albino buck. That is condition because low amount melanin in the genes.
The most valuable trophies are the ones with white spots of the head and neck.
If you like to know more about normal roebucks trophies and their hunt you can read our article here:
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