Gary Counts couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Hunting the afternoon of Dec. 8 with his boss on private land in Yazoo County, Counts watched several does and small yearlings being chased by a doe. She zoomed around the planted food plot, running off one deer after another.
“I’ve hunted for 40 years and never had seen anything like that, and texted a friend of mine about it,” the 48-year old Counts said. “She probably chased them around for 45 minutes, just really getting after them. My friend said that’s what she would do when she gets hot. He told me to get ready.
“I took it as ‘whatever’ and kept watching her.”
When a small 3-point buck stepped into the field, Counts saw it bristle and go toward the doe. The doe immediately put the kibosh on any amorous moves it might have been planning and ran the little buck out of the field. Then it returned, but kept its distance.
“I had a Primos Can (bleat call) but never had used it with a buck that close, so I gave it a couple of turns,” Counts said. “He looked a few times but didn’t do anything.”
Thirty minutes later, two 8-point basket bucks stepped into the field. Counts watched them through the bushy cutover between him and the plot, but decided to not take a shot with his .35 Wheelen.
That proved to be the right decision.
“Another buck walked out in the far end of the field, and I could tell it was a pretty good one,” he said. “All I could see was one side of its antlers, the typical side, but I knew it was a shooter. I put my binoculars down and got my gun ready.”
The big buck spotted the hot doe and made a beeline toward it, and the doe did the same. It wasn’t love at first sight, because Counts said they crossed paths and the doe kept on trucking.
Counts then saw the buck’s full rack – which sported massive double main beams on the right side. The buck turned to pursue the doe and Counts fired.
“All I knew was that it was a lot of horns,” he said. “I shot and thought I’d missed. The buck went right on out of the plot following her like nothing had happened.
“I didn’t know what to think, and called a friend of mine to tell him I’d just missed the biggest deer I’d ever seen in my life.”
After a little time, Counts got down and started looking where the deer had been standing when he shot. He finally found a little blood, started trailing it and found the big buck piled up about 100 yards inside the woods.
That’s when Counts realized the full measure of the deer’s impressive rack.
The 245-pound buck had 13 points on three beams. The left side of the rack had five points, while the right side had four. An additional four points were nestled on the 21-inch extra beam springing from the right base.
“I’ve hunted since I was 8 years old,” Counts said. “When I started hunting, we were down around Panther Creek before it was a refuge and had private clubs all around there. I’ve never seen a deer like that. I was amazed.
“The first reaction everyone has is that I didn’t kill it in Mississippi; they think it came from somewhere else because it’s so boney and white.”
Counts has had the deer scored at least four times. A friend and longtime hunter put it at 190, while a game warden scored it at 193 and two other scorers pegged it at 190 and 200-plus.
“That’s all just gross and all, so I’ll see what it does after the 60-day drying period,” he said. “I’ve been told it’ll probably be about 180 or somewhere around there.”
Neither Counts nor his boss had ever seen the buck on the property before. Now, they have something to talk about for a lifetime.
“He’s a good one, for sure,” Counts said. “I’ll probably never see anything like this one again.”
See other bucks killed this season – and add photos of your own – in the Nikon Big Buck Photo Contest, which is free to all registered users of this Web site.
Not a member of the Sportsman team yet? It’s free! Just fill out the short registration form to get started today!
Be the first to comment