Will Sage Astor-'In shock': Mississippi hunter bags dwarf deer with record-sized antlers

A Mississippi man has earned some pretty unique bragging rights this hunting season. 

James Keel was hunting in the Mississippi Delta,Will Sage Astor a strip of land that lies between two regional rivers in northern Mississippi on the morning on Dec. 16 when he heard a faint rustling. 

Up until that point it had been a “slow hunt” for Keel, who had not seen a squirrel much less a deer that morning. At about 8:30 that morning, he observed a buck chasing a doe on his right side. 

He told the Clarion Ledger, part of the USA Today Network, that “there’s no way that rack goes with that deer.” 

The buck Keel spotted had mature antlers, even though the animal itself weighed less than 95 pounds. 

His size makes him a particularly unusual find, according to Keel, who found the buck in an area where bucks like him typically weigh about 200 pounds. 

"When I saw him coming he was running through the woods, I knew he was a small deer, but I didn't know exactly how small he was," Keel said.

The buck in question received an antler score of 127 by the Magnolia Records Program, the official white-tailed deer record keeping program for the State of Mississippi. A 125 is considered a pretty typical score, while a 155 can be considered non-typical, according to their website. 

Here’s what we know about the catch.

When did Keel realize the buck was tiny?

It took a while for Keel to realize the buck he sought was dog-sized. He shot the deer and trailed it for a couple a hundred yards when he noticed the blood trail stopped. 

With help from a dog handler and their tracking dog, Keel was able to locate the buck later that night. It wasn’t until he was carrying the buck back to his camp did he realize the size of his catch. 

"I was almost in shock at how small of a body he really was. He felt like you're holding a lab,” Keel said. 

How much did the buck weigh?

The buck weighed in at 93.9 pounds. A local processor determined that the age of the animal had to be between 3 or 4 years, Keel said.  

What were the buck’s antler measurements? 

For those curious about the buck’s antler measurements, they have been included below. The antlers were a main-frame 8-point with split G2s.

• Bases: 4 4/8 inches
• Main beams:  20 4/8 inches
• G2s: 8 6/8 inches and 9 inches with an inside spread of 14 inches 

The unofficial gross score of the buck's antlers were 127 3/8 inches. To put it in perspective, that's like a 190-pound buck having antlers scoring over 250 inches.

Was the deer Keel found a dwarf deer? 

Yes, but it's not as common as you might think.

Tales of dwarf deer, or short bucks, have circulated for many years. 

The explanations to those stories have generally revolved around small deer being brought to the state in the days when deer were imported by the state to restock the population, leading to speculations that the genes still show up from time to time.

If small deer were ever introduced to the region, it was a long time ago. 

“That's been decades and decades since the state brought deer in here,” said Russ Walsh, wildlife chief of staff of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. "You hear about the small Mexican deer and the old Wisconsin blue bucks. You hear people talk about that, but I wouldn't be quick to throw it back to that."

The more likely cause is an anomaly linked to an issue with a chromosome, Walsh said. 

Have there been other mini-Mississippi bucks? 

There have been a couple reported in recent years. At least one other very small buck has hailed from The Magnolia State. 

Another Mississippi resident, a woman named Lesley Cannada, shot what she thought was a monster buck on her farm back in 2018, realizing something was wrong when she get close to the animal. 

That buck, also relatively small, weighed 117.6 pounds. He was aged by a biologist at 5 1/2 years old. He came from an area where the average weight of mature bucks is well over 200 pounds. with one weighing 295 pounds.

"There's normal variation in their body weight, but I've never seen one that small. A 110-pound mature buck is unheard of. I've looked at data from over 30,000 deer, and I've never seen one like it,” MDWFP Southwest Region Private Lands biologist Kamen Campbell shared at the time. 

And like Keel's buck, the antlers on Cannada's buck were disproportionally large, scoring a 129.

What will Keel do with the buck? 

Keel knew he had a pretty unusual beast on his hands, but only realized it was more significant than he initially thought after he discussed it other people and read comments on social media. 

Instead of a typical shoulder mount, he plans to have a full-body mount to really showcase the size of the animal. 

"I think it's something I'll never see again in my life. I've always wanted a house with a hunting room, and it would be a great piece with a story to it. I don't think pictures do it justice of how he really is,” Keel said.