The new world-record, 48-pointer taken last season by Luke Brewster generated more saliva than a blind squirrel at a dog park. But the Illinois giant wasn’t the only whitetail dropping the jaws of deer hunters in 2018.
Another tongue-wagger wore only 10 points, and no deer was attached.
The “Indiana Legend” sheds stole some of the big deer spotlight in January. They are the antlers previously worn by the deer Andrea Moffett shot with her .44 Mag rifle in November 2016. When killed, the Hoosier State whitetail was a mainframe 4x5 with an irregular kicker, which significantly reduced its B&C score. Without the abnormal point and before deductions, the frame hit the 200-inch mark.
In 2015, the even bigger rack was a clean 5x5 that tallies 190 4/8 inches WITHOUT an inside spread (they are sheds, after all). Given a conservative 24 inches, similar to their width the following year, the antlers might’ve easily tallied north of 232 inches.
That’s a conservative guess, too. People who actually saw the deer in 2015 claim it was much wider then, closer to 30 inches.
Those numbers mean the Moffett Buck – the year before Andrea shot it – could’ve easily been the largest 5x5 to have walked the earth. All doubt is removed when you compare the massive antlers with other Perfects in the BTR. As an intact rack, it would’ve beaten the world-record Johnny King Buck by 14 inches!
Speculation over the air between the beams aside, the 99 6/8-inch left side is No. 1 among 5-point sheds in the BTR’s perfect category. It’s No. 3 among all point counts. The 90 6/8-inch right side is No. 5 among 5-point antlers, and No. 8 overall.
The sheds are now part of Jay Fish’s New Legends collection, which was revealed during January’s Monster Buck Classic in Wichita. They were scored for the BTR at the Iowa Deer Classic by Ron Boucher and Bill Campbell.
The measurements are incredible:
R: 30 3/8, 7 3/8, 12 6/8, 13 5/8, 5 4/8 (mass of 21 1/8) = 90 6/8
L: 30 7/8, 11 1/8, 15, 16 5/8, 5 5/8 (mass of 20 4/8) = 99 6/8
— Read Recent Blog! Good Things Come: Hunter: Keith Szablewski | Illinois 2018