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Photo by Mark Freeman Neil Scheuneman wasn't expecting to have the kind of success he enjoyed when he first set out for New Zealand. Bowhunter bags record fallow By MARK FREEMAN After more than an hour of creeping, crawling, slithering and inching his way across open range in his stocking feet, Neil Scheuneman figured he was as close to hunting immortality as he could get. When he first reached New Zealand six days earlier, he had only vaguely heard of fallow deer and had no idea what this bizarre cousin to the blacktail even looked like. And there, one long bowshot away, were two white fallow deer males -- one a big buck, the other rumored to be a bowhunters' world record. But Scheuneman, peering through the brush, could not tell which was which. "Once the second buck stood up," Scheuneman says, "there wasn't any doubt. This was the one." Scheuneman let loose an arrow that hit its target 43 yards away and put the Jacksonville man at the top of archery's list of all-time fallow deer hunters. The white fallow buck Scheuneman brought down with his bow April 10 has antlers massive enough to place both bowhunter and buck atop Safari Club International archery records for the species. Not bad for the 54-year-old stock trader, who made good on a long and difficult shot. "I normally wouldn't take a shot like that," Scheuneman says. "But that's all I got. "I didn't do it for the glory. I just got lucky." Scheuneman's luck will get canonized by hunting's disciples next year when his deer's antlers are officially listed in the Safari Club International record books. The antlers' score of 226 points is just 5-8ths of a point higher than the world record for bowhunters as categorized by SCI. That fallow deer was taken in July 1998 in Australia. SCI's current all-time fallow deer record for rifles is a score of 238 points. Scores are determined by adding several specific antler measurements and subtracting points for imperfections. Scheuneman's deer was recently scored by an SCI-sanctioned master scorer, qualifying his deer for the record book. Scheuneman is more interested in knowing he succeeded that day in the grasslands of New Zealand than being known as a man with a world record notch on his bow. "It's a really big deal, but it's not a big deal. You know what I mean?" he says. "If I can get a world record, that's great. But it's not critical. Not critical at all." And it wasn't even an option for Scheuneman when he and a hunting partner from Bend traveled to New Zealand in April. Scheuneman, a bowhunter for 20 years, booked his New Zealand trip to hunt a red stag, which is a large European red deer built much like a Roosevelt elk but without the elk's cape. On the first day of his week-long hunt, he stalked and shot a 7-by-8 point red stag after crawling to within 15 yards of the animal. Back at the hunting lodge, he could not help but hear the chatter from guides on the 70,000-acre private ranch about a fallow white deer buck destined for the record book. For three years, ranch guides have been watching this buck from afar, but no one could get close enough to send an arrow his way. They asked Scheuneman if he wanted to try his hand at the potential record fallow "I deer. "I said, `What the hell does a fallow deer look like?"' he says. They look like small blacktails spray-painted white with a funky set of antlers that look like the byproduct of a moose mating with a mule deer. The fallow deer (scientific name dama dama) are natives of Southeast Europe and Asia transplanted all over the world, including New Zealand, which has no native deer. They can be white, dark chocolate or brown. They are small -- a big one weighs just 200 pounds -- but their antler mass to body weight ratio is the highest among the world's deer. So Scheuneman accepted the invitation and began stalking this one particularly elusive fallow deer with bow in hand -- which is more dangerous than it sounds. Fallow deer are mean. Unlike blacktails or elk that spar when in rut, fallow deer will fight to the death -- sometimes chasing their victim more than a half mile just to finish him off. They fight regularly, with the sound of their crashing antlers echoing over New Zealand's open and rocky plains. "They tell you, if you wound it, don't come up on it," he says. "They'll try to kill you. And they could." And they grunt. Like pigs. "It sounded like a pig farm out there," Scheuneman says. The first day among these grunters, Scheuneman found some fallow deer he chose not to shoot. "After shooting the stag, I had already drawn blood, so to speak," Scheuneman says. "I didn't feel I had to shoot one. I wasn't out there to prove anything." On the fourth day, he spied his prize, but could not get closer than 75 yards -- twice as far as a tough long shot for an archer. On the sixth day, his guide spotted the trophy fallow in a place he never saw it before -- bedded down in a wide-open grassland with another buck. Scheuneman hiked to within 100 yards, then stripped off his pack, belt, watch and anything else that could rattle and spook the deer -- including his boots, which swished too loudly on the crushed granite ground. He crept closer and closer, often moving only an inch at a time, sometimes crawling and slithering behind shrubs and grass. At 43 yards, he stopped. One deer was standing, the other sitting, scanning the area where he stood crouched downhill. The first deer looked big; when the second stood up, however, it showed itself to be the one. Scheuneman made good on his one chance. Once the antlers are re-scored by an SCI panel, they will enter the books as the all-time bowhunters record. But more importantly to Scheuneman, he will own the antlers and the story of how he stalked the best fallow deer ever seen over the shaft of an arrow. "You don't see antlers like that," he says, "and you don't see many animals like that." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] .) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA