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I am going to say he is a Muley. I killed a big deer in NE Wyoming years ago, Oct 1, 2000 actually that was an 8 x 5. He was obviously and older deer. I got caught in one of those road blocks where a game warden and biologist were set up. The side with 8 points was palmated and the young biologist told me it was a 10 year old deer which was rare for that area of public land. I asked if it was a hybrid and he did not think so as there were none in the area. They wanted a jawbone, so I said fine.

I later got a little certificate signed by 4 people at the University of Wyoming saying he was 11.3 years old. The weird rack was a product of age. I estimated him at 7-8, but was wrong. He did have the Roman nose but not a hanging belly like many. Got that little certificate framed along with the deer. He only weight about 175 dressed. Never met anybody else with one that old.

Prior to that I killed a 6 x 6 about 2 miles from that one, and it was a 182 BC and dressed 196 pounds and I have seen dozens of other bucks from that area that all looked traditional. I hunted that area from 1984-2005 and never saw a whitetail. My point is hybrids are pretty rare and while they are documented, just not likely.

I have now hunted a place in the Oklahoma panhandle that has muley and whitetail living for decades on a private ranch adjacent to a wildlife area and the last 2 biologists since 1998 have never documented one. I have killed a dozen there also and hey all seem like traditional mule deer but the live together. My 2 cents.
 
Discussion starter · #22 ·
Great Story and info Old ******. And do agree, would be rare and unlikely.

Fun to look for them though.

Note: this is a designated WhiteTail culling hunting area in Mule Deer country and have seen two 'actual' cross bred females (will look for my old pictures) but have yet to see an actual 'no-doubt about it' crossbred buck.
 
Discussion starter · #23 · (Edited)
Here are two younger deer with 'actual' whitetails grazing with there mama. Mama has rope like tail with the big ears.

This pic was taken a year or so ago about two miles from where current buck image was taken last weekend.

Another reason for my continued query as mentioned earlier. Interesting to me anyway! Opinions on these are welcome as well.



kangaroo Wildlife Grass Marsupial Wallaby
 
He's a big mule deer buck and all the rest in the pictures are Mule Deer too. He has a more elk like antler shape, but some mule deer will do that. Looking at the size of the antlers at the base and overall rack size I say older buck. Not necessarily a real old buck. Many mule deer bucks as they get older the base size gets bigger but number of points may go down. By older I mean over 7 1/2 years or more. It is rare to find a buck that old in hunted populations. Nutrition and genetics, mostly genetics will cause some differences in rack sizes and symmetry.
 
SA45, that funny buck (I like Con 43's "Delk" because the left antler stands up more like an elk) is a mule deer. There is no question. But one of these last photos does show a whitetail in the shadows behind two mule deer. So they do intermingle.

I know a farmer in SW Kansas where they shoot some nice whitetail. He showed me a rack years ago that he had. It was a nice (not huge) 4 x 4 mule deer rack, and I told him so. (He isn't a big hunter.) He argued with me and said it was actually a whitetail. He was giving me supper and a place to sleep, so I didn't argue past that. But it was a mule deer rack: forked, and then each fork forked again.

Yet, I have seen photos of big eared deer with white circles around their eyes, long white tails and even typical whitetail antlers. They do cross. But I don't think your cool looking "Delk" is a cross. But who knows until you bag him and the biologist look at his DNA?

Thanks for sharing. Very cool.

Did I miss where you saw him? What state, and where in that state? (Sorry if you said that, and I missed it.)
 
As my uncle used to say, "Shoot it, then we'll figure out what is!" Mostly he was being a smart mouth but not always... and sometimes it was hard to tell which! Sure looks like a muley to me. Generally deer like that will have thicker and thicker racks every year and, generally, about the same size. Info about rack development has progressed a lot in the last couple of decades. When I was yoing (I'm almost 70 now) I was told that "deer" (used generically, mostly the folks in the west had no idea what a whitetail even looked like!) grew a new set of tines every year! Clearly that was bogus. There's still some variables that fit into the equation but some generalizations can be applied.
Cheers,
crkckr
 
Depending on location crossbreeding isn't all that unusual. Gramps use to talk about them back in the 60's in Mt and since he was the taxidermist who mounted them I'll take his word. He and his brothers ran a shop just north of Yellowstone park for decades and had lots of experience with both.
Now days I live in OR and have seen how a whitetail will follow a close doe for days until she's ready where a mulie usually wanders off looking for one ready NOW.
It's been detrimental to the mulie herd around here.
 
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