By Travis King

November 22, 2016

After filling my Missouri deer tags, I traveled to the family farm in Illinois. I had one either sex tag so I made the decision that I would only fill it with a respectable buck. The stand I went to on opening morning, Friday, November 18th, was the same stand that I harvested a nice 8-pointer out of on opening morning of 2015.

I got settled in just before sunrise and waited for the woods to come alive. It was a windy morning with unusually high temperatures for this time of year. Things were quiet so I scanned the honeysuckle looking for signs of movement. With this much underbrush, deer often appear with little to no warning.

At 0654, I looked to my left just in time to see a huge 8-pointer materialize out of the undergrowth. He was 35 yards away walking directly towards me. I raised my Benelli SBE II shotgun and waited for him to give me a shot opportunity. When he got to about 30 yards away, he turned slightly giving me a quartering towards shot opportunity. Since I was sitting higher on the hill, the shot angle was pretty good.

I took the shot and the Hornady SST slug hit the deer in the spine directly between the shoulder blades, which caused the buck to drop in his tracks.

I let the woods settle down and then climbed down to examine my buck. The deer has incredible mass, long main beams, a nearly 20" inside spread, and beam tips that wrap around towards each other. The buck's body size was equally impressive, which I estimate to have been well over 200 pounds. I didn't thoroughly examine his teeth, but I'm guessing that he is at least 4 1/2 years old.

I have several European mounts in my home, but this is the first buck that I have sent to the taxidermist. For a mainframe eight, he is huge. I have yet to put a tape on him, but I'm estimating that he'll score around 150". What a way to wrap up my 2016 deer season!