The concerned expressions transformed to sheer astonishment when Jayne's relatives saw the deer he'd just killed. Any one of the onlookers could have fitted the buck's antlers around their shoulders like a bony shawl. The 12-point rack had an inside spread of 24 7/8 inches. Tall tines sprouted from each beam.

THE WRONG BUCK?
Jayne naturally assumed the deer he'd just taken was the same one he'd been watching for the last three years. He couldn't wait to have it aged at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's Tompkins-Cayuga Cooperative Hunting Area in nearby King Ferry.

After looking at the buck's lightly worn teeth, DEC technician Wayne Masters stunned Jayne by declaring the 180-pound field-dressed buck to be a strapping 3-year-old.

Two other state biologists who examined the deer came to the same conclusion. That meant the huge buck Jayne and others assumed they'd been watching for the past three years had to be two different deer -- at least.

Jayne was incredulous, but Masters said he was "absolutely sure" of his identification. He pointed out that Jayne's deer had characteristics that clearly distinguish a 3-year-old buck from one that is a year younger or older.

Jayne was astonished to discover that the huge buck might not have been the same whitetail he'd been admiring and photographing for the previous three summers, which means there might be more than one buster buck in the neighborhood!

WRONG BUCK
Jayne was still skeptical, but when he and his friends took a closer look at the pile of deer snapshots they'd accumulated in recent summers, they realized the DEC workers were right.

"There definitely are two different deer in those pictures," Jayne said. "The other one is not quite as wide as the one I got, but it has taller points."

"It's kind of exciting to think another like this one is still out there."

RARE INDEED
Jon Van Nest, who operates a taxidermy studio and meat processing plant in nearby Moravia since the 1970s, was impressed by Jayne's deer.

Although he has handled many 120- to 140-class bucks, Van Nest remembered only one local trophy that rivaled the Jayne buck. In 1982, he said a young hunter brought him a buck that would have scored in the 180s under the Boone and Crockett measuring system. Unfortunately, the deer didn't qualify for the book because the hunter had cleanly broken one of the main beams with a hurried shot. As it turned out, Jayne's deer fell short of Boone and Crockett minimum standards, but handily qualified for both the Northeast Big Buck Club and New York Big Buck Club, which have minimum standards of 110 and 140 inches, respectively, for gun-killed typicals.

Merritt Compton of Trumansburg, a veteran scorer for the New York Big Buck Club who green-scored Jayne's wondrous whitetail in mid-December, came up with a preliminary gross score of 182 4/8 inches using his organization's measuring system. After subtracting the lengths of two odd antler points and the differences in measurements between comparable tines and diameters on the left and right beams, Compton arrived at a net green score of 165 2/8 inches -- just 4 6/8 inches shy of the B&C minimum of 170 for a gun-killed typical. The deer's rack eventually lost another 5/8 inches during the mandatory drying period.

"I've been a measurer for 30 years, and that buck is by far the most impressive one I've ever seen," Compton said.

The Jayne buck's standout feature was its 24 7/8-inch inside spread, which made it one of the widest-racked whitetails ever slain in the Empire State. Only subtle differences in left-right symmetries, two sticker points and 4-inch beam circumferences kept it from getting a dose of international prestige.

"I was a little disappointed that it didn't qualify for Boone and Crockett," Jayne admitted. "But I've sure had a lot of fun with it, and it's going to look awfully good on my wall, anyway."

Besides, Jayne knows he may have a chance at an even bigger buck this season!