You’d think a sustained, countywide effort to wipe out feral hogs might push resident whitetails – particularly mature bucks – into another zip code. You just can’t put that kind of pressure on a deer that’s survived four or more hunting seasons, right?
That’s what Jim Thompson of Frankfort, Kentucky, thought. What self-respecting buck can abide hog hunters traipsing through and slinging lead in its back yard, even if it doesn’t mind sharing space and food with wild pigs?
Nevertheless, Jim put aside his reservations when a close friend suggested they hunt an 800-acre Henry County farm that had been purged of hogs. They hung stands a mile apart about a week before the state’s bow season opened.
After seeing an enormous buck the first afternoon he hunted there, Jim spread some corn and hung a trail camera. Eventually, he retrieved nighttime photos of the world-class whitetail.
Three days after the same buck crossed the road in front of Jim and his buddy, Jim headed out in the 80-degree heat to watch the sunset from a 16-foot-high ladder stand between clover and soybean fields.
“I knew the buck had been there just before dark on the last photo I’d collected, so my confidence was high,” he told Dale Weddle, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.
Right on schedule, the big buck’s frequent traveling companion, a smaller buck, came to feed. The enormous 10-pointer was two minutes behind it.
“All I could see, at first, was the huge, tall rack at the edge of the field,” Jim said. “The buck hesitated for just a few seconds before walking toward the corn, and that’s when I clicked off the crossbow’s safety. When it lowered its head, I shot.”
Four of the eight uprights on Jim’s buck are more than 13 inches long. It’s the largest Perfect to come out of Kentucky in 2017, and the fourth-largest ever shot there (by any means).
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