Had Timothy Nichols not seen the No. 1 buck on his wish list, not to mention other bucks and a hot doe they all very much wanted, he might have gone home soon after the clouds broke on Nov. 11, 2014.
But the deer was close and not likely to leave without its girlfriend, so the bowhunter from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, sent his father, Robert, a one-word text: Stay.
Robert understood because he'd seen the same buck a week earlier, when he and his son were hunting 50 yards apart.
"Dad saw a deer he claimed was as big as an elk, with dark antlers and white tips," said Timothy, a 28-year-old commercial real estate salesman.
"I believed him. He's been hunting for 40 years, so I know he knows what a big deer looks like," he added. "But I didn't think it was going to be a 200-inch-plus deer until I saw the trail cam picture."
Curious to see the captivating whitetail his father had described, Timothy set up a trail camera. When he checked it five or six days later, there was one image of the buck taken at midmorning, which was encouraging.
It meant the whitetail wasn't completely nocturnal.
He didn't actually see the buck until Tuesday, Nov. 11. His dad was with him that day as well.
"I heard sticks breaking at the field's edge 40 yards away, and then I saw a buck with a drop tine. I knew it was the same one from the trail camera," he said.
Timothy sat in the driving rain for an hour. He passed up a shot at a 150-inch 10-pointer because he knew the drop-tined buck was somewhere nearby.
Eventually, a doe hobbled into the area. Five or six bucks were jockeying to be her shadow, but the big drop-tined monarch kept running off all challengers.
When the bull of the woods ventured close enough at 9:18, Timothy stopped it by grunting.
"It was the loudest I've ever grunted," he said. "But it was raining so hard, such a raging downpour, I didn't think it would hear me otherwise."
The loud noise did the trick, and both the doe and buck halted.
The 17-pointer's BTR composite score is 204 7/8 inches.
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