Marshall County bean field produces 160-inch buck

Baldwin's Tyler Nelson, aka "tnelson" arrowed this 160-class buck Oct. 9 on his girlfriend's family land in Marshall County.

Northeast Community College student arrows huge deer.

Baldwin’s Tyler Nelson had been watching a Marshall County buck develop a massive set of antlers all summer long by using trail cameras set up on property owned by his girlfriend’s family.

“I’ve probably got 1,000 pictures of him over the summer,” Nelson said.

And the deer wasn’t a secret to his girlfriend’s family because it routinely visited a cut bean field every evening.

But Nelson took advantage of the fact that his girlfriend’s family didn’t have any big bow hunters, and now that monster buck — which has been greenscored at nearly 164 inches Pope & Young — to arrow the deer on Oct. 9.Nelson, who goes by “tnelson” on the MS-Sportsman.com forum, said he actually worried the deer had been killed by someone else.

“I had pictures of him up until two weeks before the season, and then I didn’t see him anymore,” the 19-year-old Northeast Community College student said.

But Nelson continued hunting the area, and on Oct. 8 he watched the deer walk across the bean field and enter the thicket in which he was sitting.

“I had the deer at 30 yards for 30 minutes and couldn’t get a shot,” Nelson said. “I had a shot at him at 60 yards, but I knew I would only get one shot at him and I didn’t want to mess up.”

The problem was visibility, with the thick cover in the hedgerow obscuring the hunter’s view.

“I was on the ground because I couldn’t find anywhere to put a stand, but I knew I had to find something … so I went in the next morning and moved a stand to the trail he was using,” Nelson explained.

The stand wasn’t much — just barely enough to provide a bit of elevation.

“I probably was only 10 feet high, but that’s all I could do,” Nelson said.

So between 3:30 and 4 p.m. that afternoon, Nelson climbed into his low stand and waiting. An hour later, right on time, the huge buck and an 8-pointer walked out on the far side of the field and began feeding toward the concealed hunter.

“He probably had 200 yards to cross the field,” Nelson said. “I got nervous right when I saw him because he did exactly what he did the day before.”

The two bucks fed directly toward the hunter’s position, and 20 minutes later the huge deer was easing through the hedgerow.

“He did the same thing he did the day before,” Nelson said. “I dew back, and he kept coming. He got to 20 yards and was quartering to me, and he saw me.”

The young hunter didn’t hesitate.

“I shot him, and I hit him about mid body, and the arrow came out his hind quarter,” Nelson said. “The shot broke him down.”

Unfortunately, the buck didn’t stay down.

“He got up and took off into the woods,” Nelson said. “I thought I heard him crash pretty good, but I knew I didn’t get a good shot on him, so I left.”

He waited about 1 ½ hours, and then returned just before daylight faded away with some of his girlfriend’s family and a baying dog used for hogs.

“The dog bayed (the deer), and I went in and he was just standing there,” Nelson said. “I shot him in the chest. I thought I had missed because he didn’t move, so I shot him in the chest again.

“He stood there and then fell over.”

Even though the hunters had seen plenty of trail-cam photos of the deer, they were stunned when they walked up and put their hands on the animal’s rack.

“We guessed all along he would score 150 (inches), at least,” Nelson said. “All the pictures we had were in velvet, so we didn’t think he had that much mass.

“We never guessed 160, so he grew a whole lot.”

The 11 scorable points (plus one sticker that wasn’t quite long enough to score) were arrayed along thick main beams that wrapped around 21 ¼-inch of air. The mass, which everyone who had seen the summer’s trail-cam photos assumed would be lost when the velvet covering fell off, was substantial — 5 inches at the bases.

Rick Dillard, keeper of the Magnolia Records, greenscored the beastly deer at 163 ⅞ inches Pope & Young.

The kill had the potential to get Nelson in big trouble with his girlfriend’s stepfather, who had decided to bow hunt this season and actually set up a stand in the hedgerow from which Nelson shot the deer.

“The day before I killed it, it walked 10 yards from his stand,” Nelson said. “It did the same thing the day I shot it; it walked right under his stand before it got to me.”

However, his real problem turned out to be his girlfriend’s sister.

“She’s mad at me; she’s a big hunter,” Nelson chuckled. “I told her she couldn’t be mad at me because until this deer I had never shot anything like the deer she’s killed.”

In fact, his next-biggest trophy is a 13-inch 10-point he shot when he was 14 years old.

“I’ve been to Illinois hunting, but never got the opportunity to shoot anything bigger than that,” Nelson said.

Log on to MS-Sportsman.com/bigbucks to keep up with the big deer killed this season.

And don’t forget to post photos of your own bucks in the Mississippi Sportsman Big Buck Contest, which is free to all registered users. Not a member yet? It’s free, so click here to get started today!

About Andy Crawford 279 Articles
Andy Crawford has spent nearly his entire career writing about and photographing Louisiana’s hunting and fishing community. While he has written for national publications, even spending four years as a senior writer for B.A.S.S., Crawford never strayed far from the pages of Louisiana Sportsman. Learn more about his work at www.AndyCrawford.Photography.

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