Persistence leads to monster Laflore County 18-point

Huge deer green scored at 187 inches Boone & Crockett.

Stephen Henderson was distracted at work the entire week of Dec. 12, but it wasn’t because of Christmas preparations. Nope, it was because he couldn’t help thinking he had missed his opportunity the previous weekend to bag a big buck he and his buddies had been chasing for a couple of years.

“He was 20 yards from me,” Henderson said.

The Madison County hunter resolved the issue on the afternoon of Dec. 16 when the big buck, which has been green scored at nearly 190 inches Boone & Crockett, made a fatal mistake.

The crew hunting the Laflore County property had been catching glimpses of a huge buck over the past couple of seasons, but no one was really sure exactly how big it was.

“We don’t use trail cameras,” said Henderson, who is known as “ShagNasty” on the MS-Sportsman.com forum. “Some people say, ‘I’m going to bow hunt only’ because of the challenge, and we just decided to go strictly by sign that’s in the area.

“We kind of like to find (a buck) and truly hunt the deer.”

This buck was wily, however, seemingly unwilling to leave a roughly 10-acre area of the property that was thick and offered the most protection.

“We knew that the deer was in there,” Henderson said. “The last couple of years, I’ve seen glimpses of a big deer, but nothing I could ever shoot at.”

But there had been no sign of the mature buck this season until about three weeks ago.

“We found a rub line,” Henderson said. “He had some 3- to 4-inch-diameter trees ripped to shreds, torn up. That’s when we went, ‘Whoa, we’ve got something.’”

The difficulty was getting a shot: Although there are trees in that section of the property, elevation wasn’t a great help because the undergrowth was so thick.

So the weekend of Dec. 11, Henderson just walked in and sat down near the rub line.

About 7:30 a.m., a noise caught his attention.

“I heard something move behind me,” Henderson said. “I knew it was a deer, but didn’t think much about it.”

After hearing more noise, the hunter eased atop a stump and stood to get a better view into the thicket.

“There was a doe in there, and it took off running about at 60 yards,” Henderson said. “She didn’t know I was there.”

And then a sound drifted through the thicket that sent a thrill of adrenaline through Henderson’s body.

“I hear him grunt,” Henderson said. “I eased around and saw him. He was 20 yards from me.”

Well, “saw him” wasn’t really the best description.

“The only thing I could really see was the spread of the horns,” Henderson explained. “I couldn’t see the height.”

He estimated the spread to be in the neighborhood of 20 inches, but he couldn’t see any details of wide growth of calcium atop the buck’s head.

The buck was inside the thicket, but hit an opening through which the hunter could have squeezed off a shot.

Henderson passed the brief opportunity.

“I had one good shot at him, but I didn’t want to shoot unless I knew what was there,” he said. “It could have been a 20-inch cow-horn spike, for all I knew.”

It was that brief opportunity that haunted Henderson through the succeeding work week.

“I just couldn’t get it out of my head, ‘I just don’t know how I could get a better position on this thing,’” Henderson said he told all of his friends over and over again.

Finally he and a buddy eased into the area and set up a climbing stand a good 150 yards from where the buck had been seen. Henderson just hoped the deer would come to the edge of the thicket and offer another shot.

As soon as he could slip out of the office on Friday (Dec. 16), Henderson headed to the property and settled into the climber about 3 p.m.

He was less than confident.

“The wind was blowing on my back,” Henderson said. “The way I was looking to shoot was downwind.

“I was already thinking I was going to have to set up on this deer again.”

But shortly after 4 p.m. the buck announced its presence – to the west of Henderson’s stand site, which meant the deer was crosswind and couldn’t detect his presence.

I heard him grunt one time,” the hunter said. “He was probably 70 or 80 yards from me. I kind of sat tight for a minute.”

And then Henderson decided he had to do something to try and make the buck react, so he pulled out a grunt and his rattling antlers.

“I grunted back at him; I grunted at him three times,” he said. “I then rattled pretty good. I racked those horns in a limb and on the tree.

“Then I quit and waited.”

It was a short wait.

“It probably took him about 2 minutes, and he was standing behind me at 40 yards,” Henderson said.

The buck was in a thick area, giving Henderson plenty of cover to turn for a shot.

“As soon as I spun around, he popped out on the other side of a thicket,” Henderson said.

What Henderson saw took his breath away.

“He was just a monster,” he said. “I couldn’t shoot quick enough.”

The buck was looking directly toward Henderson’s tree, but the elevation of the stand was working.

“I think I could have done calisthenics up there and he wouldn’t have seen me,” Henderson said. “He was looking directly at my tree, but he was looking down underneath.”

The buck moved around the area, shaking its head aggressively and racking its antlers through nearby bushes.

“He was looking for a fight,” Henderson said.

The deer finally turned broadside at about 40 yards, and Henderson focused on the shot.

“The only thing on my mind was, ‘Shoot that deer; shoot that deer!’” Henderson said.

His .270 barked, and the deer went down.

Henderson began celebrating.

“I was jumping up and down in the treestand,” he said. “It’s surprising I didn’t fall out.

And then the shakes took over, and the hunter said he sat down and tried to figure out exactly what he had killed.

“I knew it was the same deer (he had seen the weekend before) because I noticed the spread,” Henderson said. “I thought I was shooting a good 8-pont with a nice spread.”

He pulled out his phone, but it was some time before he could do anything because the excitement was giving him fits.

“It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to sent a text message,” Henderson said.

As he finished texting one of the guys hunting nearby, Henderson saw another bud walking toward him.

“He asked how big he was, and I just held my arms like I was kicking a field goal,” Henderson said. “I said, ‘I think I’ve got just a nice 8-point – heavy horns, got some age on it.”

Henderson finally ratcheted down the tree, and the pair of hunters eased up to the downed buck.

They both saw the enormous rack at the same time.

“We were 10-year-olds jumping up and down in the woods, hollering,” Henderson said.

The buck has a total of 18 scorable points, although there is an extra, broken point off a drop tine on the right side of the rack that could be considered a point.

It has been green scored at 187 inches Boone & Crockett.

See other photos of the huge rack in the reports forum.

See more bucks killed this season – and photos of your own – in the Nikon Big Buck Contest, which is free to all registered users of this site.

Not a member of the Sportsman team yet? It’s free! Just fill out the short registration form to get started today!