#80 Santa Rosa Island Mule Deer Buck-- Jack Elkins
#80 JACK ELKINS
Talk about a classic Santa Rosa Island buck. This buck exhibits so many traits that are characteristic of these Kaibab-strain mule deer that resided on SRI. Wide, heavy, nice eyeguards, and several non-typical points to make it interesting. As well, it had kinda short beams. If we wanted to choose a poster-buck to show off what a typical big buck was, this great buck shot by Jack Elkins might be it. In the last post, we talked about the magic period of early September 2005. Well, the last week of 2005 was just as magical, if not more so. This buck started it all. This was the only 200" buck shot during this particular hunt. The hunt after this, all five buck hunters shot 200+" bucks. Pretty amazing. Once the rut starts, better keep hold of your binoculars-- you never know what might present itself. By then we had been hunting hard for two solid months, but the Island had enough hidey holes and big country that we couldn't find all the bucks. Believe me, we certainly tried!
Jack was one of our most loyal clients during our last ten years of the program. If we started a Hall of Fame for MUM clients, Jack would certainly be a charter member. Jack loved wide bucks. I think he would rather shoot a 32" 180 class buck rather than a 27" 200 class buck (actually have evidence to prove this, but that story shows up later in the Top 100 list). Jack also had a particular tick that his first shot of a hunt was usually an adventure. Once he shot his wad at the beginning, he was always dead-on, often well over 300 yards. For some reason he and his 30-378 just needed to get reaquainted. Luckily only one real big buck eluded Jack because of this.
