Kentucky's record book entries saw a major reshuffling following the 2021 deer season. Among the several categories' new top-10 whitetails was a Nicholas County buck taken by Mark Wade of Carlisle.
The 55-year-old homebuilder and farm worker's Sept. 20 harvest, the veteran hunter's best-ever, is the new No. 9 among the Bluegrass State's irregular-racked crossbow entries in Buckmasters Whitetail Trophy Records.
Mark first became aware of the exceptional buck in 2020. It was one of two wish-listers on his radar, and he wound up shooting the other - a clean 5x5 - simply because opportunity knocked. The surviving deer was a mainframe 11-pointer with some stickers.
When he retrieved the first 2021 trail camera photograph of the savvy deer, it had grown even more points. Two cams were enough to keep tabs on the deer until August. When the animal ceased walking in front of them, a desperate Mark put out three more units.
Despite the buck's steering clear of corn piles, Mark managed to collect some images before the hunting season opened. To zero in on the deer's preferred food source, Mark moved some of his cameras to monitor acorn-producing oaks.
Bingo.
Mark found himself in the perfect setup - a brushed-in, portable blind positioned near a ridge crossing - on the rainy afternoon of Sept. 20. He'd been in place about 20 minutes when he spotted the big deer approaching from 150 yards.
"That was the first time I had laid eyes on the buck, and it was just unreal," he told Dale Weddle, who's writing the story for Rack magazine.
The whitetail was casually browsing, moving toward Mark.
"He was coming at an angle to me, getting closer and closer. When I ranged him at 60 yards, I decided to shoot," he said.
The crossbow bolt took out both bellows, and the deer ran 60 yards on pure adrenaline.
The 19-pointer tallies 201 7/8 inches by Buckmasters' yardstick. Nearly 39 inches of the score are derived from irregular growth; the inside spread is 20 5/8 inches; and mass accounts for 34 2/8.