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190” Texas Tank
By Patrick Dunning
A fine example that giant free-range whitetails reside in northeast Texas can be found in Cody Nicholson’s pre-rut success last year on a new permission piece.
In the short history Cody had with this farm, he identified the 20-pointer through trail cam photos and one distant on-the-hoof encounter during bow season.
Despite the 15-inch third main beam he noticed protruding from the bottom of the rack’s right base, Cody admits it was difficult to determine how big the deer’s rack actually was.
“It was hard, even from trail cam photos, to see all his mass. But I knew judging from those photos he was a legal deer, width wise, since we have a 13-inch inside spread rule in most counties here in Texas,” Cody told Buckmasters. “He was moving fast through this pasture with a bachelor group so I never got a good look at him then, either. I had to grunt a couple times to get him to stop.”
The herd slowed up for a moment at a half-acre planted clover plot and Cody, overlooking that field from a box blind with his dad and lifelong hunting guide, threw his scope up and made a lethal 120-yard shot at the mainframe 9-pointer quartering away.
“My dad being there made that moment all the more special. He lives next door so I picked him up on the way to the woods that day. Neither of us knew how big this deer truly was until we got up to him,” Cody said. “It was warm that afternoon, so we celebrated for a moment and Dad got busy field dressing him.”
Buckmasters scorer Jack Johnson measured this Lone Star Specimen 191 1/8 inches for our record book. The rack features a compact, 15-inch inside spread and 11 irregular points that add almost 50 inches of bone to the official score.