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HAZE Temp: 48 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Thursday, November 21, 2002 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend October 10, 2002 Outdoors A day of hooky ends on a record-setting note for Jarrell By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Raindrops chiming on the roof of Ashland High School’s mechanics classroom Oct. 2 signaled to senior Bill Jarrell that books needed to give way to blacktails that day. "I was sitting in school and I couldn’t handle it," says Jarrell, 18, of Ashland. "I wanted to go buck hunting." So Jarrell stayed in the mechanics class long enough to get his Honda CRX running again, then sped away from school and right into blacktail hunting infamy. Jarrell borrowed his father’s rifle and drove to a family friend’s rural ranch known to be home to some large blacktail bucks. Then just minutes into a hike down a deer trail, Jarrell startled a five-point black-tailed deer with antlers the size of a chandelier. "I pulled up the scope and he just staggered back, and just looked at me like he knew he was dead," Jarrell says. "He let me shoot him." But the five-point buck will live on in the rifle-hunting record books as sporting one of the most impressive sets of antlers ever seen on a black-tailed deer. Preliminary measurements of the buck’s antlers total 180-6/8 points, rendering it one of the top handful of blacktail racks ever recorded by The Boone and Crockett Club and the largest ever in deer-rich Southern Oregon. If it does not lose much mass during the required 60-day drying period, the antlers could rank among the top three sets of symmetrical black-tailed deer antlers in the world. "This is probably the biggest blacktail to ever come out of Jackson County," says Dennis King, a Jacksonville taxidermist and official Boone & Crockett measurer who scored Jarrell’s buck. "It’s absolutely monstrous." It’s just as mind-boggling to Jarrell, who still struggles to comprehend how he parlayed a day of hooky into the record books. "I never thought I’d get a chance to shoot anything that big," Jarrell says. "I’ve had a hard time believing that a buck that big even existed." If one were to exist anywhere, Jackson County is as likely a place as any. Buck deer sprout their bone-like antlers when testosterone triggers germinal tissue in their heads to sprout. They continue to grow to different sizes and at different rates depending upon genetics, the age of the animal and the concentrations of such antler-growing minerals as calcium and phosphorus in the animal's feed. Local blacktails are well known nationwide for their genetics, which often are a mule deer-blacktail cross that are larger than conventional blacktails. Plus, the region’s forage is thought to contain high concentrations of the antler-growing minerals. But none of that mattered to Jarrell on Oct. 2. He simply wanted to be out of class and in the woods. He took a non-hunting friend, Tyler Johnson, with him to the ranch near Mount Ashland, where the owner had told Jarrell he could stalk the big bucks living there. A seasoned hunter who two years ago shot a five-point blacktail, Jarrell expected to sneak around the woods in hopes of spying a big buck active in the light, misty rain. "Then I just kind of stumbled into this big buck," he says. The animal, bedded in brush, popped up right in front of Jarrell, and the pair met eyes. "When you walk right up to them like that, it’s like you can sense that they know they’re dead," Jarrell says. He downed the buck with one shot from his dad’s .25-06 rifle, and quickly realized what he had done. Killing a buck with such thick, long antlers spread so far apart seemed so easy, almost too easy. Jarrell didn’t feel jubilation. More like unworthiness. "So many people spend their entire lifetimes searching for a buck like that, and all I do is go walk up and shoot it," Jarrell says. "I don’t think I earned the right to kill that animal." But he did earn the responsibility of taking care of it. So he gutted it out, then jammed it into the rear of the Honda. But the rack was so large, Jarrell couldn’t close the car’s hatchback. "On the drive through Ashland," he says, "I got some dirty looks and some not-so-dirty looks." Jarrell eventually took the deer to King, whose preliminary scoring quantifies the enormity of the animal. "I expect it to score in the top three of all time," he says. Current top three are: 182-2/8 points, shot in Lewis County, Wash., in 1953; 179 points, shot in Coos County in 1953; and 178-4/8 points, found on a dead deer in Jackson County in 1950. If Jarrell’s deer does score in the top three, the Boone & Crockett Club may consider some genetic testing on the deer to determine that it really is a true blacktail and not a mule deer that happened to be in blacktail country, says Chris Tonkinson, Boone & Crockett’s assistant to the director of records in Montana. "We’re talking about doing that now with blacktails because it’s come up before," Tonkinson says. "But in no way do we want to throw cold water on (Jarrell’s) hunt. That had to be an exciting experience for him." Jarrell says the experience of accomplishing a hunter’s lifetime goal before his high school graduation feels somewhat numbing. "I went out and shot it. Great. Now what do I have to look forward to?" Jarrell says. "I’ll just start shooting smaller bucks. Nothing will ever match this, so why try." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search M Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy web master feedback A D V E R T I S E R S