Chris Frey’s wife used to hate the thought of seeing a deer mount in their New Baltimore, Michigan, home.
Now, not so much.
Prior to the 2019 season, Chris had little reason to test his beloved’s resolve. His best buck to that point was a forkhorn.
The one he brought home on Friday, Nov. 29, however, was plenty reason to consider redecorating.
That was the next to last morning of Michigan’s regular firearms season, which had opened Nov. 15. That Chris even went hunting that day was an afterthought. In the decade since he’d got hunting bug, he’d never shot a deer before lunchtime.
Plus, he’d never shot a deer with a muzzleloader.
“I had the day off work,” Chris explained to Richard Smith, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “We didn’t have plans to go anywhere as a family, so I decided to go hunting.
“I’m not a horn hunter by any means,” the 40-year-old disabled veteran emphasized.
Chris knew a very large buck was in the area he was hunting in Macomb County. He’d collected trail camera photographs of it in July and August. The images had ceased after that, though, convincing him the deer had gone elsewhere.
He was so sure the buck had packed it bags that he didn’t hesitate to try for another one when opportunity knocked during the mid-October bow season. Fortunately for him, he wound up shooting over the much smaller buck’s back.
On the life-changing day, Chris went to a 5x5 ground blind he’d built at the edge of the soybean field, where he’d last collected a photo of the big buck, as well as others.
He saw a big-bodied deer with antlers – unaware it was the one with double drops – when it came around a finger of tall grass about 135 yards distant. Chris doesn’t have the best of eyesight, even if he had tried to focus on the rack.
He’s practically blind in his right eye.
“If a deer’s antlers are wider than its ears, I quit paying attention to them. I get my mind in the game,” he said. “I didn’t want to get buck fever, and that’s probably what would have happened if I had spent too much time looking at those antlers.”
He let it get 10 yards closer before he squeezed his .50-caliber muzzleloader’s trigger. And with a hole in its heart, the deer remained on its feet for only 10 yards.
The 7 ½-year-old whitetail, a new state record among blackpowder entries, weighed an estimated 300 pounds. Its BTR score is 202 1/8 inches.
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