Sam and I are trying to remember that old saying about being stuck on the horns of a dilemma, because we read in the Wall Street Journal that some people in Texas are faced with that problem. Surprisingly, this has nothing to do with Rick Perry’s presidential candidacy (though one shouldn’t be too surprised if it did). No, to quote the November 12 WSJ article by Ana Campoy, people from some northern states are smuggling deer into Texas – "big bucks with big racks"- in order to breed them with the smaller native Texas deer. The goal is to create Texas deer with trophy-sized racks.
And you thought Texans just favored blond bimbos with big racks . . .Ahem.
Anyway, this smuggling deal involves muy spondoolicks or mucho, or whatever. According to Campo’s article, Texas deer breeders who are legit might have to pay as much as $20,000 per vial of sperm to produce a Big-Rack Bambi. Since Texas law forbids transporting live deer into the state, the bad boys of buck smuggling sneak their big northern bucks down yonder and presumably black market their services for less than the breeders would have to pay for home-breeding.
This happens more than you would think according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent interviewed by Campo. Texas A&M University has reportedly estimated the legitimate and licensed buck breeding of white-tailed deer in Texas is a $650 million business. Like racehorses, virile bucks can be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. One top breeder reportedly sold for $650,000. So, you can see why smugglers are cashing in on this deal.
Sadly, trophy bucks are bred in captivity, kept behind fences and made easily available to hunters (unlike shooting bucks in the boondocks). And the primary reason for all this bad buck business is because hunters want to bag a deer with a big rack so they can be entered in the Boone & Crockett Club record book. Apparently, some of the artificially created bucks sport antlers that are huge at a much younger age than they would if they were not in captivity. These antlers sport dozens of thick nobs and nubbins that can make them look gross, like mutants from outer space, but they’re BIG.
I don’t hunt anymore; haven’t for many years. But when I was a kid and my dad and I went deer hunting, we were after meat. A big rack was coincidental. Living on California’s northern coast like we did, we never saw many big deer or big racks. You were lucky when you lived in the redwoods to bag a deer that dressed out at 90 pounds and had more than a small fork of antlers on each side of its head – nothing Boone & Crockett sized for sure.
I remember nailing a couple of what we called four-pointers during my brief years as a great white hunter. A four-point had four points of antlers on each side of its head. A four-point was a trophy as far as my dad and I were concerned because that meant the deer we’d shot had been wily enough to live several years and we were the guys who finally bagged him. Of course, most years we never fired a shot at a buck all season long. Scour the woods as thoroughly as we might, we just never saw a baggable buck.
Sure could have used Sam in those days. Trouble is he probably would have licked a buck to death trying to be its bud and brought home some ticks to boot.
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