KIMBERLING CITY, Mo. (AP) - Two tangled bucks that drowned in a Missouri lake last month have been memorialized in a teenager's European mount of their two skulls and antlers locked together.
Andrew Roy, 18, and fellow youth angler Jacob Gray, 17, were fishing a bass tournament in Table Rock Lake when they spotted two motionless deer in the water in Kimberling City, the Springfield News-Leader reported.
The teens found the 11- and 8-pointer bucks had apparently been fighting on shore and somehow drowned when they landed in the lake.
Roy received a permit from the conservation department to keep the heads. He said it took him about a week to finish the European mount, where just the skulls and antlers are preserved.
"They turned out well and they're still interlocked - they never came apart during the whole boiling process," Roy said. "They were so tightly together, I don't think I could have replicated it if I had managed to take them apart."
While preparing the skulls, the teenager said he noticed one of the deer had broken its nose and the other buck had two cracked teeth.
Roy didn't think either injury came from the fight that locked the deer together as they appeared to be healing.
The story of the deer the teenagers found circulated on social media, and Roy said he heard from several people online. He and his father have a small business focusing on doing European mounts for deer hunters.
He said the story of the deer "opened us up to a whole new crowd of people."