Lake City, Minn. — Jesse Schroeder thought he was looking at the tines from a nice shed antler while he wandered his brother’s Goodhue County farm in southeastern Minnesota in early April. But when Schroeder walked in to scoop up his find, a couple nice tines grew into a whole bunch of them, and those morphed into a monstrous rack attached to a dead buck.
And not just any buck, but what appears to be the biggest nontypical whitetail in the Minnesota record book. Schroeder’s buck, recently scored by a panel of veteran measurers from the Boone & Crockett (B&C) Club, amassed a net score of 277⅜ inches.
The Gopher State’s current nontypical state record – a 268⅝-inch monster killed by Mitch Vakoch in Norman County – was tagged in 1974, just shy of a half-century ago. B&C accepts found, or “picked up” heads in its record book.
Schroeder was shed hunting his brother’s 32-acre property on April 7 when he found the buck.
“I’d picked up some nice sheds there over the years, but nothing that came anywhere close to this,” he said. “I spotted the tines and walked that way, and then I saw stuff sticking everywhere and my walk turned into a quick little sprint, followed by a high-school girl scream when I kneeled by the buck. My shed hunting was definitely done for that day!”
After calling local state Conservation Officer Brittany Hauser, Schroeder took possession of the rack and, not long after, word of his incredible find spread.
“I’d never had an encounter with him while hunting, or even a trail cam pic of the buck, though he’d obviously been on the property at times in his life,” he said. “A friend of mine was hunting the property one afternoon and told me he saw a buck that looked like it had a tree on its head. But as the buck approached, my brother’s wife came outside to call her cats, and that scared the buck off. We’d heard there was a giant buck in the neighborhood and figured that had to be him.”
Other neighbors, however, were much more familiar with the deer.
“After I found him, I started getting trail cam pics and videos from hunters and landowners in the area,” Schroeder said. “They were from locations as far apart as five miles, but all in the same basic corridor. One guy had a shed from the buck that he figured was from when the deer was 2½ or 3½ years old. That shed was from 2017, so the buck was 7 or 8 years old, the best we can figure.”
Schroeder said the buck’s carcass was basically a skeleton and revealed no clues as to cause of death.
“I did notice some of his front teeth were gone, and it looked like the jaw bone might have been fractured and infected,” he said. “My guess is the buck got in a fight and got sick and just didn’t make it through the winter. We plant five or six acres of food plots every year, just to help the deer feed and winter well, but this winter was tough on the deer, with plenty of ice and snow and cold, which stayed around late.”
The buck was scored on June 10 by a panel led by veteran measurer Dave Boland. Incredibly, the Schroeder buck is a main-frame 5×5 that gross-scored over 182 inches, with a 20⅝-inch inside spread, 23-inch main beams, and circumferences better than 6 inches at the base. But thanks to an amazing array of drop tines, kickers and stickers, the buck gained 100 inches, which catapulted its score into the “world class” category.
Assuming the panel score holds up (B&C typically reviews the scores of all top-end bucks), the Schroeder buck could tie for the 25th spot in the B&C records of nontypical whitetails.
With the panel score still fresh in his rear view, Schroeder admits he’s still a bit awed.
“I mean, I knew the buck was huge when I found him, but I really didn’t appreciate how big he was until a friend clued me in to just what I might have,” he laughed. “Suddenly the 60-day drying period seemed forever and I was worried something might happen to the rack. But now that that’s done, it’s just fun to share him with other people, so they can appreciate what an amazing buck he was.”
The buck’s antlers will appear at next year’s Minnesota Deer and Turkey Classic March 8-10, 2024, at Canterbury Park.
