Patrick Durkin: Have you seen this buck? Wisconsin man offers reward

Roger Maes knows he’ll recognize his grandfather’s nearly century-old trophy buck whether it’s in online photo galleries, hanging in a Northwoods tavern, or fully restored and displayed at a giant hunting/fishing store.

But the Madison, Wis., resident hasn’t seen the buck for more than 30 years, not since his grandfather sold it shortly before dying in 1993.

Maes is just going off childhood memories and an old photograph with a top-left corner peppered with thumb-tack holes. The photo shows a decrepit shoulder mount and 18-point, coffee-colored rack flanked by two old snowshoes on his grandfather’s basement wall in Niagara.

Maes hopes to find someone who’s seen the antlers so he can get them replicated for his family’s posterity. He also hopes a $500 reward might produce the needed video or photographs showing the rack’s unique traits.

Maes’ grandfather, Theodore “Ted” Maes, was a hunter and trapper, and worked at a nearby paper mill. He shot the old “swamp buck” at age 21 on Nov. 21, 1932, roughly 7 miles east of Pembine in Marinette County, not far from the Kremlin mine and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

And that’s about all Maes knows about his grandfather’s hunt that day. Roger Maes isn’t even certain his grandfather shot the buck with the .300 Savage Model 99 lever-action rifle that Roger’s brother now owns. And he doesn’t know if his grandfather shot the buck from a stand, while taking part in a drive, or still-hunting through a cedar swamp.

All Ted Maes ever said was that he killed nearly 70 bucks in his life, but only one – that lone buck on his wall – had venison too tough to chew. He did, however, eat its heart and liver. He figured the buck was at least 10 years old because it lost all but a couple of its teeth.

“Of course, my grandfather might have been embellishing all that,” Roger Maes said.

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Whatever the case, Ted Maes knew his buck’s antlers were exceptional. Forty-six years ago on Jan. 25, 1980, at age 69, he took his buck mount to Duaine K. Wenzel in Crystal Falls, Mich., to have it officially scored.

He paid the $20 registration fee to enter it in the Boone and Crockett Club’s record book. Wenzel scored the rack as a 202-7⁄8 “nontypical,” and listed its gross score as 208-4⁄8 before deductions.

Wenzel judged the rack as nontypical because its 10-point main frame had eight abnormal points totaling 38 inches, including a distinctive 7-inch drop tine beneath its left beam.

In addition, the “G2” tines on both beams – the second point out from the skull – carried forked 9-inch tines jutting up from their bases, the right G2 measuring 10-5⁄8 inches and the left measuring 10 inches.

The rack also measures 23-7⁄8 inches between its main beams and 19-5⁄8 inches between its tips. It ranks 203 of 618 nontypical Wisconsin whitetails in B&C’s records.

Roger Maes thinks his grandfather sold the old mount for $200 to a collector who often stopped to visit.

“Late in his life, I don’t think my grandfather really knew how unusual those antlers were,” Maes said. “Around Christmas, he would put a red ornament on its nose and stick it in the snow out front. He didn’t even worry that someone might steal it.”

Maes also wants everyone to know he and his family aren’t seeking to own the rack. They simply need a better look at it so they can make an exact replica.

The old photo from Ted Maes’ basement doesn’t clearly show the rack’s abnormal points. Maes said he’s been in touch with the Boone and Crockett Club, but learned he can’t get the club’s file photos of the antlers unless he’s listed as the owner. The club’s files still list his grandfather as the owner.

“Other than that old photo, my only memory of the buck was from my childhood,” said Roger Maes, now 59. “My grandfather had a barber’s chair in his basement, and every time we got our haircuts, we’d sit in that barber’s chair, looking at the mount with its cracked nose and hair shedding from its left ear. It was an amazing buck, but I was too young to appreciate what I was looking at.

“My dad often reminded his dad to never sell the buck,” Maes said. “Dad knew an antler collector was pestering my grandfather every time he passed through town, but Dad didn’t learn my grandfather had sold it until after he died. My father never had time to track down the collector because (Dad) died just four months after my grandfather passed.”

Roger Maes, meanwhile, had moved to California for work. He moved back to Wisconsin in 2002, settling in Madison. He soon got into bowhunting, which rekindled his interest in his grandfather’s big buck. He attended a few deer shows to look at all the buck mounts, and contacted the son of an antler collector who might have known about the missing buck, but nothing came of it.

“I dropped the ball on it for a while,” Maes said. “But as time went on, I’d find myself scrolling through thousands of photos every deer season, knowing I’d recognize it if I saw it. And then, cut to this year, I recommitted to finding it so I could get a replica made. With social media and all the advances in online searches, I figured it would be worth offering a $500 reward to help find the antlers.”

Maes asks anyone with information to contact him at roger@statepointmedia.com.

He’s optimistic because each deer antler is unique, and the deer-hunting universe features countless geeks who never forget an antler.

“It won’t matter if the mount is still battered and cracked, and sitting in some bar in the middle of nowhere, or if it’s been restored to its full glory and on display with lots of other big heads,” Maes said. “The more people who see that old photo, the better the chances that someone will recognize it.”

Contact Patrick Durkin at patrickdurkin56@gmail.com.