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Locked Bucks Freed with Chainsaw

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Two rutting bucks locked antlers in an Iowa timber stand, and one hunter’s chainsaw was the only thing standing between them and a slow death.

Owen Reigler wasn’t hunting when he found the fight of the season. The Midwest Whitetail cameraman was out on his southern Iowa property hanging a new ground blind on November 29, 2019, when the sound of antlers crashing together, over and over, pulled him off the job and into the timber. What he found there was two mature whitetail bucks locked head to head, neither one able to walk away.

• Reigler discovered the bucks during routine blind setup, not an active hunt, after hearing sustained, aggressive antler clashing in the timber.
• He and a companion used a tow strap to control the thrashing animals, then ran a chainsaw near their heads to sever a tine and break the lock.
• Both bucks separated and ran off into the woods unharmed once the antler was cut.

A Rut Fight That Didn’t End

Locked antlers happen every rut season somewhere in whitetail country — two bucks lower their heads, drive in hard, and occasionally their rack geometry catches just wrong. Instead of disengaging, they’re stuck, chest to chest, unable to lower their heads far enough to twist free. Left alone, that usually ends one of a few ways: exhaustion, dehydration, a coyote pack finding two helpless bucks, or one animal suffocating under the other’s weight.

Reigler had heard bucks sparring plenty of times filming for Midwest Whitetail, but this was different — the clashing didn’t stop, and didn’t move. Following the noise instead of ignoring it is what put him on the scene while the bucks still had enough fight left to save.

The Tow Strap and the Chainsaw

Two full-grown rutting bucks, still healthy enough to thrash, are dangerous to get close to — a swinging head or a kicking leg can do real damage to a person working within inches of them. Reigler and his companion used a tow strap to pin down the movement enough to work safely, then Reigler brought in a running chainsaw right next to the animals’ skulls and antlers to cut away the tine holding them together.

Outdoor outlets that picked up the footage were blunt about the risk involved, framing it as an intense “do NOT try this at home” scenario where one wrong lurch could have meant a serious human injury.

One severed tine, and two locked bucks that had been fighting for their lives went from hopeless stalemate to sprinting into the timber, unharmed.

Success of the Strategic Cut

The whole rescue hinged on removing just enough antler to break the mechanical lock without touching either buck’s head, eyes, or throat with the blade. Once that single tine came off, the geometry that had trapped them simply let go — both bucks pulled apart on their own and bolted, no lingering injury, no follow-up needed.

It’s the kind of moment that sits alongside other close-quarters wildlife encounters that circulate in hunting and outdoors circles — footage that looks staged but isn’t, the kind you’ll find catalogued among the most extreme wild animal battles caught on camera. Reigler’s clip stands out because the “battle” ended with a human intervention instead of a natural resolution.

Midwest Whitetail built its channel on rut-season footage like this — bucks fighting, chasing, and occasionally getting themselves into trouble they can’t fight their way out of. For a crew that spends every November in the timber waiting on exactly this kind of chaos, freeing two bucks with a chainsaw instead of watching them die locked together was as much a part of the season as any trail-cam photo.