Mark Clemens knew he shot a buck Sunday morning.
He didn't know he shot one with enough antlers for three bucks and change.
"When I walked up to it, I couldn't believe it," said the Edgemere hunter. "I thought, 'What's that coming out of the head?'"
Stretched out on the ground was a 23-point buck, antlers pointing every which way and still covered in velvet.
The nontypical rack isn't huge. It is different.
"It's like the Rorschach test of antlers," said Paul Peditto, head of DNR's Wildlife and Heritage Service.
It took Clemens, 45, and two buddies forever to drag the 200-pound buck off private property in Charles County. From there, they took it to Ray Hitchcock's taxidermy shop in Severn, the same place Bill Crutchfield took his state record buck two years ago.
Clemens, who has been hunting for 33 years, called it "the deer of a lifetime."
Peditto called it, "cool, but scary looking."
Velvet is a membrane that supplies oxygen and nutrients to the antler as it is growing. When the antler reaches full size and turns to bone, the velvet usually falls off.
But a hormonal deficiency or a physical injury can cause the velvet to remain, Peditto said.
Clemens said he is having the odd buck turned into chops, steaks and ground meat. The head is being mounted.
"The pictures don't do it justice," he said. "You've got to see it to believe it."