When I ask you to think of big Texas whitetails, the picture that comes to mind is most likely the wide, chocolate-horned deer of Southwest Texas surrounded by arid brush country and huge expanses of desolate high prairie. In most cases, you’d be right, but as any deer hunter will tell you, sometimes we should look to the least likely spots for the biggest rewards.
I live in Texas, but I’m actually closer to Memphis, Tennessee than I am to Rio Grande hill country. The area I hunt in Collin County isn’t quite an hour north of Dallas. It’s not exactly the kind of terrain people think about when they hear that a 200"+ buck was killed there.
On November 5th, I was scouting and found a rub on a 10” diameter tree, so I put out a cellular trail camera in hopes of getting a picture of the buck that made the rub. The next night, an unbelievable buck showed up to check the rub. Once I saw the picture, my planning to figure out where he was coming from and bedding started. I put out several more cameras on the trails and rub lines. It took me about two weeks to finally figure out his bedding location, but once I determined that, I started setting up my stand locations based on wind directions and access.
The first encounter I had with him was at around 7:45 a.m. on November 17th. The monstrous whitetail came in at 45 yards but stayed in the brush looking for does before turning and walking back the way he came. To see him on the hoof was pretty intense. I have shot some pretty big deer, but seeing this one in person was mind blowing because you don’t always get the opportunity at that caliber of deer during daylight. At that point, I knew my window of opportunity was only going to last a couple more weeks while the rut was still going on.
I hunted the next three days with all-day sits but no sign of him, although other deer movement was really good. On Thanksgiving morning, I decided to do a quick sit for a couple of hours before I had to be back home for Thanksgiving lunch with the family. The morning started out pretty quiet, and I had planned to leave at around 9:30 a.m. At about 8:45 a.m., I heard crashing through the woods and it was headed right towards me. I was sitting on the ground behind a GhostBlind as I saw a doe emerge from the brush, running full speed right at me, and then she quickly turned and stopped 10 yards from me. She was panting with her tongue hanging out and looking behind her. I could hear running and grunting coming from the direction she had just come from, but she was so close to me that I couldn’t turn and look for fear that she would see me and bust. Luckily, she trotted roughly 20 more yards into the brush and I was able to turn and look. When I did, I saw the drop tine mega giant that I was after. He was taking a different angle than she did and was quartering away from me. He was still trotting when he came into my shooting lane, and I was trying to stop him, but he was paying me no mind. I knew that I may never see that deer again and it was now or never. I had already ranged all of the trees around me, so I knew the yardage he was at. He was quartering away at 40 yards when I let the arrow fly. I lead him just enough that the arrow penetrated right behind his rib cage and came out behind the opposite side shoulder. I knew it was a lethal shot, and then the adrenaline kicked in along with the reality that I had just smoked a buck-of-a-lifetime.
Officially, the deer net scored 233 7/8" as a non-typical, which made it the #3 buck all time for free-range Texas non-typical bucks taken with a bow. He was an absolute monster from a state known for being a whitetail hunting paradise.
I have to thank God for putting me in the right place at the right time, which allowed me the opportunity to take such an amazing animal. Like I always tell people, you can’t kill ‘em on the couch, so get out there and hunt!
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