Bow hunter harvests rare 18-point doe, officials confirm

SHELL KNOB, Mo. (KY3/Gray News) – A man in Missouri has been hunting since he was old enough to hold a weapon, but none of his hunts have been as successful as his last.

Kelly Moore had been watching a game camera showing a deer with large antlers roaming around his usual hunting grounds for days. He saw it before he gave up watching for the day and took a shot with his crossbow.

After hauling it out of the woods, Moore and his peers inspected the animal and realized certain parts were missing from what they thought was an 18-point buck.

They quickly determined it was a doe, which the Missouri Department of Conservation confirmed.

“You never know what you’re going to see out there, and this is case in point,” Francis Skalicky with the Missouri Department of Conservation stated.

To put things into perspective, it’s about a one in 10,000 chance that a doe grows antlers. It’s an even more significant anomaly that it’s grown as many antlers as it has.

“I’m going to take it to the taxidermist and try to get the ball rolling on that because there is special care needed for the velvet on the antlers and all that. I’m hoping maybe to be contacted by somebody to put it in a museum or maybe Bass Pro or something like that. It’s going to hang on the wall somewhere, even if it’s just in my house,” Moore said with a laugh.

It happened to be the first time Moore used a crossbow while hunting. A lucky shot with a lucky weapon on a lucky day may be the biggest trophy of Moore’s hunting career.

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