August 2009 marked the beginning of an amazing whitetail adventure for 24-year-old Casey Orr, who decided to do a little pre-season scouting on his family’s farm in Choctaw County in preparation for the upcoming deer season.
The baseball coach at nearby Starkville Academy arrived at a vantage point on a power line right-of-way overlooking a distant clover plot, and he could hardly believe his eyes: A monster buck with a gigantic set of palmated antlers was in the green patch.
Knowing that no one would believe he had actually seen such a buck, Orr immediately dialed brother-in-law Paul Courtney to tell him to come verify the sighting. Even at over 500 yards, the pair agreed that this palmated monster was unlike any deer they had ever seen.
“After that first sighting, I went back every afternoon hoping to catch another glimpse of the big buck,” Orr said. “Over the next month and a half, I only saw the buck three or four times crossing the power line. I even put out a trail camera, but was only able to get a couple of pictures of the buck late one night in September.”
Determined to take the monster, Orr hunted hard during the 2009 archery season without a single sighting. Then while out squirrel hunting that November, Orr’s dad had a close encounter with the palmated buck. He was walking down an old logging road when the giant stepped out right in front of the elder Orr.
His dad’s chance sighting only made the younger Orr hunt the buck that much harder, but with no success.
The giant buck remained hidden until the following July, when Orr and his friend James Courtney were headed to fish a pond on the back side of the property. The buck stood up out of a patch of broom sedge, paused momentarily to look their way, and then slowly disappeared into the timber.
The buck’s massive antlers were still in velvet, but Orr instantly knew it was the same buck – only now his antlers were even larger.
Orr’s plan to pattern the buck was cut short when the local power company mowed the power line right-of-way. Unlike the previous year, the buck never showed himself crossing the opening. Orr figured that the buck avoided the freshly mowed area because it was too open for him to feel safe, but the lack of sightings didn’t diminish Orr’s desire to harvest the giant buck.
Since the pine trees on both sides of the power line were only 7 or 8 years old and too small to hang a stand, Orr decided a ground blind was his next best option.
Being unable to afford an expensive commercial ground blind on a high school baseball coach’s salary, Orr improvised by creating a natural ground blind from what was available. He strategically built the blind 50 yards away from the trail the buck had been using to cross the power line.
On Dec. 14, with a perfect southeasterly wind to carry his scent away from the deer trail, Orr decided to give the ground blind another try. Orr crawled into his homemade blind around 2:30 p.m. and after an uneventful hour and a half in the blind caught a glimpse of something moving through the dense pine thicket directly across the power line from his blind.
“All I could see was a massive set of antlers slowly coming directly at me,” Orr recalled. “I instantly knew it was the big palmated buck.”
Due to the contour of the land and the low profile of Orr’s ground blind, only the massive set of antlers were visible above the top of the broom sedge. Although Orr had a good idea of where the buck’s body should be through the sedge, he decided not to chance the shot.
The buck continued to walk directly at the blind, causing Orr’s heart to race uncontrollably. Then, at a distance of only 20 yards, the massive whitetail turned and quartered to Orr’s right to move toward the deer trail it normally used to cross the power line.
At 15 yards, Orr raised his .444 Marlin, centered the crosshairs on the buck’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger. At the rifle’s report, the brute bolted forward into the dense underbrush adjacent to the ground blind.
Orr burst out of his hiding place and was immediately in hot pursuit.
“I knew there was no way I had missed such a close shot,” Orr explained. “I simply couldn’t wait to get my hands on that buck.”
The chase was short-lived, as the buck had only made it 30 more yards before the effects of the 265-grain Hornady bullet had taken its toll.
Orr couldn’t believe his good fortune. All his time, effort, and patience had finally paid off.
It was at that point when Orr realized that the recoil of the rifle had caused the scope to cut a gash in his forehead, but the hunter could have cared less.
Orr immediately called Courtney to tell him that he had finally killed “The Freak.”
Then Orr called his dad and said, “I shot that palmated deer!”
Since the elder Orr wears hearing aids and can hardly hear on the phone, he responded, “How many legs did he have?”
Not sure what his dad had thought he had said, the younger Orr responded the only way that made sense to him.
“He only has four legs, but he has a whole lot of points,” the younger Orr exclaimed.
And did he ever have a lot of points.
The 190-pound brute sported 27 total points, 20 of which measured over an inch long. The massive 4 ½-year-old buck was aged and green scored by a state biologist, but there was uncertainty about how to score four drop points.
So the incomplete gross score settled at 207 5/8 and a net score of 197 3/8. Once the four points in question are added back, the buck’s total score will be even higher.
While a 200-inch-plus whitetail is more than impressive, the 20-inch-plus circumference measurements between the G1 and G2 points make this palmated monster a truly extraordinary trophy.
News of the monster buck spread quickly, and folks came from miles around to admire the massive set of antlers.
“It’s too bad he wasn’t an inch or two wider. He would have been a good deer,” one visitor commented after hearing the buck had a spread of 16 6/8 inches.
Orr had a ready answer.
“Man, he is a good buck no matter how wide his rack is,” he said.
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