Panola County gives up 160-inch buck

Bowhunter arrows big deer after missing a big 10-point.

Two days after missing on a 10-point buck he had worked so hard to get, Sam Wray of Courtland found the perfect cure for buck fever blues on Wednesday (Oct. 24).

He put an arrow through an even better buck, one that he never knew was walking his 300-acre private honey hole in Panola County. The buck, a massive mainframe 8-point with as many as nine sticker points will easily qualify for Pope & Young.“We think he will do better as a typical, and will push the high 140s or low 150s typical,” said Wray, a 25-year-old farmer. “He’ll score out in the 160s as a non-typical. He has some strange characteristics, like two 4-inch drop tines, one of which grows out of the other, on the right main beam, and on the left he has three 2-inch points that also go straight down. He also has sticker points off both G2s.”

Those points definitely help push the score up.

“But the big scoring factor is the mass,” said Wray, who goes by jmself on the MS-Sportsman.com forum. “He’s very heavy. He’s, like, 5 inches at the bases of the drop tines, but at the second measuring point he’s, like, 7 4/8 (inches) on one side and 8 on the other, and he carries that out a good way.

“His main beams are 23 inches, and he’s 17 4/8 (inches) inside spread.”

All of that boney material leaves Wray sure of one thing.

“Believe me, had I ever seen this buck before, I’d know it,” he said. “But the first time I saw that buck in my life was the moment he stepped out of a thicket Wednesday about 30 yards from me.”

Wray was hunting on the same stand where just 48 hours earlier, on Monday, his heart had been broken. The buck he’d had designs on all season finally stepped out into view, but Wray missed the shot.

“I was hunting next to an old gravel pit that has really been productive for me over the years, especially the last three or four years,” he said. “I have taken several nice bucks there in recent seasons, and I had some good ones on trail cams this year, including this nice 10-point that I think will go about 135 or 140 inches.

“I was hunting last Saturday, and I spotted the 10 and a couple of other bucks walking this ridge heading to a draw. I’d seen him there and I’d seen some other bucks there earlier this season, always heading to that draw. So I decided I’d hang a stand on that ridge and I did, about halfway down it.”

He climbed into the stand on Monday afternoon, and his confidence level was high.

“And that 10-point, he came out, only he came out on a different trail than I had figured,” Wray said. “That ridge is loaded with trails, and I was set up on the one I’d seen him on, but he came out on one at about 52 yards and was quartering away.”

Confident in his shooting skills and worried that he might not get another shot at the buck, Wray decided to take the long shot.

“I knew I could make it, but I guess I didn’t lead him enough,” he said. “I shot behind him. He didn’t spook, though, and never even started running. He just walked on down the ridge and out of sight.

“I was pretty down about that — really down, I’d say. I had worked so hard to get on that buck and I did a good job of planning, but he just came out on the wrong trail and I missed the shot.”

Wray didn’t hunt on Tuesday and was still kicking himself, but he hoped that the miss hadn’t ruined his chances on the 10-point. The fact that the buck never really spooked led him back to the same stand on Wednesday for a quick morning hunt.

“I got there about 30 minutes before the sun came up, plenty of time for everything to settle down and get still before you could see anything,” he said. “I guess it was about 7:15 or so, and I heard something. To my right, down this fence line about 30 yards, is a thicket. It’s so close to the stand that if anything walks out of that thicket, it’s gonna be inside 30 yards the first time you see it.”

He was quickly ready in case the sound was the 10-point.

“When I heard something moving in the thicket, I decided I’d go ahead, stand up and get ready, just in case,” Wray said. “This buck came out of the thicket and was walking slow with his head down and never knew I was there.

“I didn’t recognize him, but I knew immediately he was a shooter. His antlers were so tall and massive, believe me, I knew he was a sure-enough shooter.

“But I never really knew just how good he was.”

Wray didn’t get nervous. Understand, he has arrowed many good bucks in the last 10 years on the same 300-acre property, including several in the 140-inch range and many more over 130.

So he calmly drew his Mathews DXT bow when the buck was at 20 yards broadside and sent the 100-grain Muzzy four-blade broadhead through both lungs of the deer.

“I knew it was a good hit, and I watched him run down into the gravel pit, which is pretty open,” Wray said. “I was watching him when he made a quick turn and fell down. I could hear him crash, but I was looking right at him when he did. I could tell he was done.”

The hunter was thrilled.

“I still didn’t know how good he was, but I was pretty pumped,”Wray said. “I sat down and got my breath and called my brother-in-law, who was hunting about 300 yards away, and told him he needed to come help me.”

It was only when the two men reached the buck that Wray saw all the animal’s hardware. He was stunned.

“We just don’t get a lot of 150- or 160-class bucks in this area, not at all, and especially non-typicals,” he said. “It’s basically unheard of around here.”

Well, it used to be anyway.

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