Cleft lip buck

I had an interesting end to a slow gun and muzzleloader season. Over the gun/muzzleloader season, I was able to hunt a total of 5 days—only a few hours the first day and then 4 full days over the rest of the season.  Over the first 44 hours I saw only 6 deer ... all of them within 35 minutes on the Thursday morning of the second shotgun weekend. I was only able to hunt the final Sunday of the muzzleloader season.

I was in the stand at 6 AM and at 4:28 PM had seen no deer, and then the attached buck came walking in.

I had already started packing my gear, so I was more focused on retrieving my gun than I was on really inspecting him, but given the day and hour, it was an easy decision for me. I shot him 9 yards from the base of the tree I was in. He went about 75 yards and dropped. I immediately finished packing my gear and descended from my 30-ft perch.

As soon as I walked up to him I noted the nose deformity that I had completely missed earlier. I see no scar/scar tissue, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t caused by an injury.  I’ve found only a couple of reports of deer with a similar cleft nose on the internet, and I would be interested if others have seen and/or harvested deer with such.