A sea of antlers and camouflage gear filled the Ashmont Agriplex on Dec. 6 for the 35th annual running of the Ashmont Buck of the Season contest.
Organizer Steven Jeffery is part of the third generation to keep the event alive and running in the community.
“It was originally started by my grandfather, Cliff Jeffery, here in town,” he said. “They had four or five heads to begin with. They did it right on Main Street, out in the cold snow.”
The competition involves local hunters bringing in their best of the season in order to have the antlers measured by the judges. A complex process is used to assign a score for each entry.
“They start by measuring how wide the antlers are, and then they go with how long each tine is,” Jeffery said. “Then they measure the circumference of the actual antler – the base of the antler – in between the tines. Add that all up, and then the point has to be at least an inch long. If it’s at least an inch long, then it’s a measurable point. So it’s added by inches. If you see a deer with a score of 191, that means that it has grown 191 inches of score-able antlers.”
The judges put the measuring tape to a total of 38 entries this year, which is a slight drop from their yearly average.
“A big part of today is to talk about the season and compare notes,” Jeffery said. “This year, I think the general consensus is that the population is a little bit down, maybe, compared to other years.”
Once all of the results were in, a total of eight different winners took home prizes in a number of different categories. Donna Podloski, who lives just south of Vilna, was the winner of the Ladies Whitetail division. Podloski, who has been hunting for 15 years, was entering the contest for just the second time.
“It feels super. Really nice,” she said of the win before getting into the tale of the hunt. “We were in Mayerthorpe hunting in the evening, just before dark. It came out of the bush, and that was it.”
Aside from all the competition, the annual event is also about the community gathering together at the culmination of the hunting season.
“I enjoy coming out and just seeing what everybody else has shot, seeing what’s around,” Podloski said. “It’s really nice to see the kids in here. We take our grandchildren too, just to show them about hunting, and the dos and don’ts. I think everybody’s got stories to tell. It makes it exciting.”
“The main focus here is just to get the community members in, and just talk and see how the season was,” Jeffery said. “It’s been that way for 35 years.”
2014 Ashmont Buck of the Season winners
Open Non-Typical Whitetail
Clark Gates
Open Typical Mule Deer
Guy Piquette
Open Non-Typical Mule Deer
Kelly Konieczny
Open Typical Whitetail
Kurt Dake
Ladies Mule Deer
Candace Walgren
Ladies Whitetail
Donna Podloski
Youth Mule Deer
Brayden Mytz
Youth Whitetail
Cole Feniak
