BENTON TOWNSHIP, MI - A pair of Berrien County men ended up with more than just a couple of fish during a fishing trip earlier this week on the St. Joseph River - they left with a pair of bucks.
Royalton Township resident Bryan Ammeson and St. Joseph resident Scott Stoney were fishing for steelhead from a boat on the river at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday between the M-139 and I-94 bridges when they spotted a pair of bucks fighting near the shore. As the two bucks grappled, their antlers became entangled and they fell into the river. Unable to free themselves, the animals drowned.
"They died four or five feet right in front of me," Ammeson said. "So I ended up hooking them up to the side of the boat and we took them back to shore. We get them up, and one ended up being a 17-point with two drop tines, and another one is a perfect 10-point rack that's just absolutely massive.
"Everybody that I've showed this to so far has said that's one of the biggest deer they've ever seen."
After getting the two deer, Ammeson said he tried unsuccessfully to reach officials with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. He then contacted Benton Township police and obtained a pair of carcass permits so he could legally claim the animals.
"It all happened so fast," Ammeson said. "We we're just sitting there."
Ammeson has the photos, and the police back up the seeming "fish tale."
"They were both two huge bucks," Benton Township police Lt. Delmar Lange said.
"It's one of those things you hear about and you think, 'Oh, a myth or something like that,'" Lange said. "But as nearly as we can determine, it's factual."
Ammeson said the bucks were processed for their meat, but the heads will be mounted with the antlers interlocked - just as they were when they were first recovered.
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