King’s Outdoor World Blog

48″spread killed in Idaho - pending new world record

February 14th, 2008 David King - King's Outdoor World

48″spread killed in Idaho– pending new world record

(Note: This is NOT a real buck)

Have you got this email yet? I guess old news is new news if you haven’t heard about it before. I have started receiving quite a few emails lately from people asking me if this buck is legit and if I know anything about it. This photo has a great history and ironically I have to go back to 2002 when this photo first surfaced. This photo was actually the very reason I first started our Big Buck Alert! section back in our members web site years ago.

Here is an excerpt from the post I made about this buck back in May of 2002

New World Record Mule Deer? -posted 5/7/02
This photo has been going around the internet for quite some time about a new world record out of Idaho. Is this buck for real? Nope! The buck is a replica of a sculpture that was carved out of wood called the “Wyoming Wonder”. The artist sold some replicas of his sculptor to interested buyers. Unfortunately the truth about this mounted buck hasn’t followed all of the emails that have been forwarded about this photo. How big are the antlers anyway? They score 250 Typical points net. This score would smash the current world record- too bad.

So is this buck legit? No it is not, and let me explain as I have a little history on this buck. Ralph Trethewey made a wood carving of some incredible antlers that he made bigger than the world record typical mule deer in 2002. He made some replicas and started selling a few. This picture starting leaking out shortly after. I first saw this photo back in the spring of 2002. I ended up tracking down who was in this photo and was able to contact and talk with the guy. Amazingly I played dumb while I listened to this guy tell the story of how he shot this buck. Oops.

So here we are almost six years later and this same photo is starting to make the rounds with a very similar subject line in the email. To clarify…no this is not a new world record mule deer from Idaho. This is a buck that was created out of wood and replicated. Yes, it is a huge set of antlers that would be the world record if they were real. But they are not.

Here is a little information about the sculptor and the antlers:

Ralph Trethewey holds the antlers he carved out of wood in 2002

Carved in 2002 this was to have been the typical framework for “Deeptracks” the non-typical male deer. It was so shapely that it remained a typical scoring 236 5/8 - 5% over the world record. It is offered in an edition of 40 and 4 artists proofs.

Main Beams: 31 & 1/8″ x 32 & 4/8″
G-2’s 18 & 1/8″ and 19 & 3/8″
G-3’s 15″ and 15 & 2/8″
Greatest spead 35 & 1/2″
Final Score 236 & 5/8″ Net typical B&C

Entry Filed under: Buck Alert!