Kevin McClain first became aware of this buck in 2014, thanks to trail cameras he’d placed on his farm in Wisconsin. Nevertheless, Kevin was impressed by the buck’s development from the previous year. Unfortunately, this was also the last year for daylight pictures of the buck. The buck’s appearance changed so much that it took Kevin a while to recognize him. In addition, his left side had grown back nicely but had some non-typical growth. The deer grew taller and heavier that year, and his rack got wider, too. The following year, in 2015, there seemed to be a change within the buck. After that, however, I did take notice of the future.” Kevin notes that the buck spent most of this time between two small woodlots. His right side was pretty nice, but I wasn’t interested in hunting him because of the left side. "He was maybe a 3- or 4-year-old at the time, but he had a deformed left antler. "I have a farm in southwest Wisconsin, and I first became aware of the buck through trail camera photos." Kevin says. When panel scored for the North American Shed Hunters Club, the gigantic antlers scored 95 2/8 (right side) and 95 5/8 (left). A replica of the sheds is shown on the mount at left. Months after Wisconsin hunter Kevin McClain took a shot at this buck, Kevin’s friend Doug Sinniger found both shed antlers lying atop a snowy field. Unfortunately, there aren’t many deer that can hang with the Breen buck for sheer overall size, but the Indiana Legend is one of the few that can.īut now, another set of shed antlers has recently surfaced that are equally big and impressive as the Breen buck! This buck first came onto the radar of Stoddard, Wisconsin resident Kevin McLain in 2014. The wide-spreading antlers and long points made the buck look bigger than life, and it got the whitetail world talking. The latest to the list, the Indiana Legend sheds, shocked the whitetail world when they made their way to the public eye in 2019. Add shed antlers, and we get the names Fleming, Indiana Legend, and Elgin Ghost that lead the list. Names such as Youngman, Van Lith, Breen, Bills, and Jordan pop out. Sticking with the largest 5x5s, we find a who’s who in whitetail history when we look at known gross scores. Honestly, history has recorded only a handful of bucks as doing so. It takes a fantastic set of typical antlers to net over 200 inches, but it takes a phenomenal 5x5 to cross that mark. When you break that list down even further, you can separate the 10-point typicals from the 6圆s and 7x7s. Giant typicals are slightly more common, with approximately two dozen known white- tails crossing the 200 net inches mark. Only around a dozen bucks, including shed antlers (with estimated inside spread measurements), are known to score over 300 inches non-typical. However, even with all the big antlered deer being produced today, the true giant whitetails are few and far between. Indeed, from year to year, the whitetail world is seldom short on news and rumors of giant antlered bucks to track down and feature. It’s a great trend and one that many of us enjoy watching grow over the years. Slowly the anti was raised, and today we have headline bucks that are usually north of 270 inches. The same holds true for non-typicals most early headlines were dominated by 200-inch bucks, and if something hit 250 inches, it was sure to receive good coverage. Today a headline-worthy typical buck might need to clear 190 inches before it gets the full attention of the whitetail world. For instance, 35 years ago, there’s a good chance a 170-inch typical would make headlines. However, long-time readers of this magazine have witnessed a progressive phenomenon where the headline bucks have slowly gotten bigger over the decades. These days, it takes a pretty big deer to get the whitetail world buzzing with excitement. However, a true giant shows up every now and then and lights the whitetail world on fire. Sometimes, a set of antlers looks much more significant in pictures than they do in person, giving us a false expectation that something huge was taken. Unfortunately, some of these stories are dead ends or maybe rumors. We get a fresh crop of big deer stories and photos to analyze yearly. I also like the big buck chatter whether through social media or friends in the outdoor industry, it’s always fun to hear stories and see photos of some of the giant whitetails that roam our lands. I enjoy all aspects of large-antlered bucks, from hunting them on the hoof to hunting for their shed antlers.
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