CARPIO There's no way Kenneth and Sherman Trail could have envisioned filling their white-tailed buck tags the way they did.
In fact, after a few days of hunting, they had determined they better not be too picky about choosing a deer to shoot in a season when low numbers are a growing concern.
Oh, how a hunt can change.
Article Photos
Submitted Photo - - These white-tailed bucks with locked antlers were discovered by Kenneth and Sherman Trail of Carpio while hunting west of Grano.
The Trails made a couple of walks for deer in the cold this past Wednesday morning with no luck. Then they headed back to the house in Carpio to check on a finicky furnace. With that task out of the way, it was time to hunt once again.
"We drove to our favorite hunting spot and past a coulee bottom. I thought I saw a deer, but we'd seen so few I didn't know," said Kenneth Trail. "I backed up a bit and we both put the binoculars up. We saw two bucks fighting. They already had their heads stuck together and were fighting to get apart."
The Trail brothers hiked about 350 yards for the purpose of closing the distance between themselves and the tangled bucks which were now in the bottom of a draw about 100 yards distant.
"I've never seen bucks fighting in the wild," Trail said. "I've seen a lot of big ones chasing smaller ones but never actually seen them fighting. It was definitely a first for me. What were the odds of both of us having a buck tag?"
Taking the shot
With the deer in a certain death lock, the Trails decided to harvest both of them.
"I let my brother choose which one he wanted. He's older," Trail said. "We had no idea which one was bigger but he chose the one on the right."
The one on the left proved to be the bigger deer, a 5x5. Sherman's deer was a 4x4. Marks in the snow showed the scuffle had been going on for several hours, possible starting before daybreak. The deer were so solidly locked that they could not be separated even for loading into a pickup.
"We tried," Trail said. "We both wanted our deer."
The deer, still in their death lock, were taken to Bloms' Locker and Meat Processing of Minot where several curious onlookers expressed amazement at the rare sight. Kenneth Trail says his plan is to have a European mount of the deer he dubbed the "Lockhorns."