Alberta produces massive mule deer and the greatest example of that reputation is Ed Broder’s World’s Record non-typical, which is regarded as one of the greatest trophies ever taken in North America. Broder took this “muley” buck (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus) in 1926 near Chip Lake, Alberta, and offered a colorful account of his hunt.
“On November 25, 1926, I and two friends, driving an old 1914 Model T Ford, left Edmonton for Chip Lake, Alberta, a distance of approximately 100 miles.” Broder said. “The weather was 20 degrees Fahrenheit with a foot of soft snow on the ground. At a sawmill camp, near Chip Lake, we hired a team of horses and a sleigh to haul our gear and equipment. Finding a good cabin near the lake, we used this instead of putting up our tent.
“It was about 1 p.m. when I left camp and set out through some heavy timber and soon came across a large deer track,” Broder said. “Following the deer tracks for a half mile, I found where he had bedded down. Knowing the deer could not be too far away, I tracked him off the timber ridge, through a jackpine swamp. There I found that two moose had crossed the deer’s tracks. I had to make a decision as to whether to go after the moose or the deer. Through past experiences I knew moose would travel farther and faster than deer, and with only a short time before dark, I decided to carry on with the deer. Following these tracks through the swamp I came up onto a higher land with a clearing not too far off. In this clearing I spotted the deer; he was approximately, 200 yards away, standing and feeding with his back to me. Immediately I had to make a guess as to when and how to shoot. The distance was right, but his position was wrong. I knew I had to select a rear shot. The shot would have to be placed high in the spine, so I pulled up my .32 Winchester Special to a firing position and waited for the buck’s head to rise so as to back up a high spine shot. I fired and the animal dropped; I had broken its spine. What a rack that one’s got, was the first thing I thought.”
At 355-2/8 points, the rack’s final score replaced the former world’s record by over half as many points. And the antlers may have scored higher if they’d been measured after the initial 60-day drying period—they was not officially scored until 1960. The rack was impressive enough that a drawing of it appeared in the 1939 edition of North American Big Game. Broder acknowledged his record with the determined words of a dedicated and optimistic sportsman—“I started hunting in the year 1909 and have never missed a season since,” he said. “I am now 72 and in fair health. Who can tell, I may yet beat my old 1926 record!”
