Still, if you see it, he’s a giant and a buck of a lifetime,” he said. “I’ve always wanted a Pope and Young with my bow, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to make it. A green score of the rack only yielded around the 150 point range. The split was a deduction which will be costly on the Pope and Young Score. The buck’s rack has a fairly normal right side, but the main beam is split on the left with a massive drop tine. I would have eventually found him because I would have kept circling, but I’d have never found him that fast,” he said. “That dog dragged us straight to that deer. Shon Butler showed up the next day with his dog and according to Truman, the search was over before it even got started. Truman called in Shon Butler of Longspur Tracking to help locate the deer, which only took a matter of minutes once the dog was in the woods. “I got worried about not being able to find any blood, so I call the guy at Longspur Tracking, just in case.” Truman explained. So he decided to call it a night and resume the search at daylight. After another two hours and the clock now digging into the wee hours of the morning the buck jumped up again. Truman waited a couple of hours before trying to find him. I knew it was a good hit,” Truman said.īut the big buck, even with a good shot, bounded out of sight. I let it go and put it right behind his shoulder. He couldn’t see me, but he knew something was wrong. It was a step away from a broadside shot, but when he drew back, his arm barely touched the wall of the blind. Truman said the buck walked to 15 yards and was quartered toward him. “The next thing I know I saw a long tine coming from behind a holly tree and he stepped out,” Truman explained. On Tuesday, Truman decided he would listen to his mom and was in his ground blind when deer started moving in on him around 6:45. The buck showed up on camera that evening. He decided against hunting on Monday because of the heat–despite the suggestion of his mother he should go. Truman doesn’t like to hunt during the heat of the early season, but knew if he wanted to take this buck with the now unusual rack, he would need to endure. He got a nighttime picture off the buck on the eve of opening day of the rifle season in November of last year, but never saw him again. He would stay on the farm for the spring and summer, and around the second week of October he would vanish and I would never get a picture of him again,” he explained.ĭuring the 2020 archery season, Truman got a shot at the buck–which sported a fully typical rack at that time. “He had a pattern that I just figured out this year. It had spent spring and summer on their farm in Ivydale for several years and was commonly spotted. Truman explained he knew the buck to be at least five years old and might even be six. “I have a lot of history with him.” The unique rack reflects some kind of trauma the big buck endured during the growing process this year, Truman said the buck was perfectly symmetrical in 2020.
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“I call him the ghost buck,” Truman said in a conversation with West Virginia Outdoors. Truman hunts a farm his family owns in Clay County near the community of Ivydale and for several years he’s been aware of a buck which had proven to be an elusive critter. When the 2021 archery hunting season opened, Jesse Truman of Big Chimney, W.Va. Settle was able to get an official SCI Green Score on the incredible buck, which came in at a whopping 311 2/8 inches.CHARLESTON, W.Va. The rack is still in the drying phase before it can be officially scored B&C. Settle says the impressive whitetail has at least 57 scorable points and rough-scored it at 289 5/8 inches B&C. We are investigating this story and will continue to publish updates as we learn more.ĭerek Settle solo hunted a monster buck that’s sure to make the record books and is quite possibly the biggest buck ever taken in Kentucky-a state that is known for its booners. However, after now reading Facebook comments and seeing photos of his deer that were posted on the page of an Indiana deer preserve, one thing is clear: Someone is not telling the truth.
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(High fence deer in Kentucky do not have to be checked in.) After our interview with Settle, we were confident that his story was true. Before we interviewed Settle, we confirmed with Kentucky Fish and Wildlife that the buck had been checked in as being killed and tagged in Kentucky on telecheck.
#Big deer hunter full#
The full story of how Derek Settle put it all together to take this buck of a lifetime on a D.I.Y. EDITOR’S NOTE: When the photos of this deer were first sent to us by the hunter, Derek Settle, our immediate gut check was: This is a high-fence deer. Kentucky Hunter Kills 57-Point 280-Plus-Inch Potential Record Whitetail.