The Lovstuen Buck
Holding and Growing the New World Record
By Bill Winke

There was nothing wrong with the size of the buck’s antlers in 2002. Heck, he would have gross scored around 260 to 270 inches. It’s hard to complain about something like that. Yet the hunters who pursued him were worried. It was the smallest rack the deer had grown since they had first become aware he was living in their hunting area three years before. Why was he going down hill? Without question, he was an old deer. Could it be he was just past his prime?

The buck made it through the 2002 season and then, without any hint that it might happen, the buck grew a set of antlers that blew away anything he had grown in the past. In one year, his gross score jumped some 70 to 80 inches to nearly 340 inches!

Pass me an ammonia capsule, I’m about to faint. Seventy to 80 gross inches of antler growth from one year to the next at a time when conventional wisdom suggested that the buck’s rack was heading down hill. Totally amazing!

When the buck was harvested last fall, the net score – after the 60-day drying period but prior to Boone & Crockett panel scoring – was a shocking 319-4/8 net inches. If upheld in panel, this score makes the buck the largest ever shot by a hunter. Of course, the deer-hunting world now knows this deer as the Lovstuen Buck, in honor of 15-year-old Tony Lovstuen who killed the deer on Sept. 29, 2003, with a Knight muzzleloader during Iowa ’s early youth season.

Tony, along with his father and two uncles, Doug Lovstuen, Mark Murphy and Steve Angran respectively, deserve a hearty pat on the back from every deer hunter for the work they did in successfully patterning and harvesting this tremendous buck. However, as deer managers, there might be even a bigger story here. I want to know how the buck’s rack grew so much bigger from 2002 to 2003.

When I recently interviewed a noted whitetail biologist for an article about the Lovstuen Buck for a past issue of North American Whitetail magazine, he told me that it is common for a mature buck’s rack to increase by up to 30 percent when the amount of protein in his diet improves dramatically. I studied photos of the Lovstuen Buck’s rack in 2002 before he damaged his right antler. It is hard to tell a score from a photo but, I feel it put on at least 25 percent in gross inches of antler from 2002 to 2003 – falling in line with the expert’s claim.

It just so happens that even in Iowa – the nation’s breadbasket – most places have less than optimal nutrition for maximum deer herd health. The Lovstuen buck lived in one of those places. It is a mix of pastureland and CRP. There were some alfalfa fields within a mile of where the deer lived, but as it grew older; its home range continued to shrink until nearly all his travels were contained within a few wooded draws running through a field of CRP grass. The three cousins who knew the deer as well as anyone has ever known a world-class deer, felt the deer’s home range was little more than 300 yards in diameter during his final year.

The biggest change in the deer’s diet came in the spring of 2003 when Mark Murphy planted a three-acre plot of Imperial Whitetail Clover right in the middle of the buck’s range. Murphy had two goals. First, and foremost, he hoped to keep the buck anchored in that area to prevent him from traveling onto neighboring farms or across a nearby road where he might be shot, poached or even hit by a car.

Second, Mark had some hope that the improved nutrition offered by the Imperial Clover would also improve the buck’s health. The deer somehow broke his right beam during the summer of 2002 while it was still in velvet, causing it to stop growing prematurely. The cousins didn’t know it had been broken. They thought it may have been caused by the shotgun slug wound Doug Lovstuen had given the deer during the 2001 firearms season.

Fearing that the buck’s overall health might be in question, Mark wanted to give the deer every advantage possible in 2003. That’s why he planted the Imperial Clover in a flat, fertile area near a creek bottom in the middle of the buck’s range. The buck used the plot heavily as evidenced by trail camera photos Mark took of the buck feeding in the plot last summer.

Enhanced Nutrition in Agricultural Areas

Many deer managers in the Midwest and in other intensively farmed portions of North America believe that the commercial crops on the properties they hunt, and on the farms that border it, will satisfy all their herd’s nutritional needs. The Lovstuen Buck would seem to cast some suspicion on that notion.

The behavior of mature bucks is a product of individual personalities. One buck may be a roamer while another may tend to be a homebody that only comes out at night. It is very likely that even in agricultural parts of the country there are mature bucks that don’t venture very far to open crop fields even at night. For these bucks to receive optimal nutrition and to grow their best antlers they need a food supply rich in protein found very near their security cover. In other words, they need to be belly-deep in rich food every single day, not just occasionally.

For several years, I managed a large property in the Midwest for deer hunting. One of my goals was to increase the number of Imperial Whitetail Clover plots bordering, or contained within, security cover. I didn’t always tell the others that hunted the farm where these plots were located. Hey, the guy doing the work has to have some benefits. My goal was to raise the level of protein in the diets of bucks that stayed close to cover and didn’t like to expose themselves to open ground to get better food. I also wanted a great place to hunt these brutes.

The plan worked. I see many very good bucks on these plots during the summer that I never saw anywhere else. During the season, these were the places where my friends and I saw the biggest bucks. Planting small, secluded food sources close to security cover is definitely a great management strategy.

Thought from the Resident Expert

Regular readers of this magazine are certainly familiar with Matt Harper. Matt is the Director of Research and Development for the Whitetail Institute and writes a column on nutrition for this magazine. I asked Matt for his take on the sudden growth spurt that occurred in the Lovstuen Buck. “Until a deer matures,” he said, “much of the nutrients it consumes go to skeletal and muscular development. That’s why young bucks don’t grow the biggest racks.

“When you combine a dramatically improved high protein food source with the fact that the Lovstuen Buck had reached full maturity, it is not surprising that the antlers made this jump. He was finally able to express his full genetic potential. You could say his rack was waiting for a protein source so they could blow up.

“There is an expression in deer management circles that you have to first repair the lowest hole in any bucket if you are ever going to get it filled,” Matt added. “In most cases, this lowest hole is nutrition – same as it was for the Lovstuen Buck. When you give a buck year-round nutrition culminating with an exceptional, highly-digestible, high-protein food source for the entire season of antler growth, then you have filled the lowest hole. Only then can you truly know how big he can become.”

The Lovstuen Buck offers a great lesson for deer managers in all parts of the country, but especially agricultural areas. No matter how much commercial farming occurs in the general area where you hunt, you can’t assume that all your bucks’ nutritional needs are being met by these efforts alone. Not every buck is willing to risk the exposure required to feed in highly visible commercial fields. Providing secluded food plots that offer everything a buck needs for maximum antler growth is the best way to assure that these bucks reach their genetic potential.

Antlers Blow Up with Age

Without question, improved nutrition played a key role in the increase in the Lovstuen Buck’s rack from 2002 to 2003, but as Matt Harper alluded, there may have also been another contributing factor: the buck’s maturity and the decreasing sex drive that often accompanies it. Experts state that bucks exceeding 6 years of age often become less involved in the actual breeding activities of the rut. Some of these bucks may breed a few does and some may not breed any at all. As a result, they experience much less stress during the fall and that leads to better body condition during the winter and an improved ability to grow antlers the next spring.

Conclusion

The Lovstuen Buck teaches us that mature bucks can get bigger if their nutritional levels are elevated. It also teaches us that we have to stop thinking that bucks reach their maximum antler growth at age 6-1/2 years old. It’s not all downhill from there. Feed them right and they can keep putting on bigger and bigger antlers well past their sixth birthday.

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