Kentucky 8-Pointer Is New Best-Ever
By Mark Melotik
Bowhunters live for those up-close, in-your-face encounters that make neck hackles stand up straight. But how close is too close? On Sept 12, 2024, Kentucky’s Brandon Burman found that answer was about 10 yards. Unable to shoot through a screen of branches that helped conceal his 20-foot perch, he could only watch a world-class 8-pointer below him from his hang-on stand.
Heart racing, Brandon, 31, could only wait as the big deer soon began to move away. But before the encounter would end he would find a way to make a perfect double-lung shot at 27 yards. In the seconds that followed, Brandon’s shot toppled a deer that would instantly get the whitetail world buzzing. The reason? The amazing deer’s BTR score of 157 7/8 (without spread) makes it the largest 8-pointer ever taken by a bowhunter!
Brandon first encountered the buck he would nickname Meathead back in 2022 on a 100-acre private tract owned by his good friend Deedee, a parcel also hunted by Brandon’s brother- in-law Josh.
“We’ve had this buck on trail camera since he was a 2-year-old, and he’s always had the same characteristic tight, heavy rack,” Brandon said.
At age 2 the buck showed serious potential, but at age 3, in 2023, it “completely blew up” when it came to its mass, now scoring in the 130s. All three hunters had once again decided they would pass the buck if they encountered it during the season. Brandon passed shots several times during bow season and once during gun season, and Josh passed during a gun season encounter.
When the 2023 gun season came to a close and the buck was once again captured on trail camera, Brandon started getting excited for the future. That would intensify in 2024 when Meathead was captured on camera more regularly than ever in a very specific area of the farm Brandon calls The 100.
“The 100 doesn’t have a whole lot of dense cover or woods,” Brandon said. “The neighbor’s property is where the bedding would be. There are corn and bean fields with some rolling hills, but it’s really not a great early season spot. But it does amazing during the rut — there are a lot of great pinch points that funnel deer.”
By late summer all three hunters had chosen separate target deer for the 2024 season, and the group knew Meathead was Brandon’s choice.
Each year Brandon takes off the first week of bow season from his local food service job to concentrate on hunting with his favorite weapon, but the start of the 2024 season was frustrating. The first five days produced unfavorable winds for his stand, but on day seven, Thursday, Sept. 12, the forecast predicted an east wind. Although not ideal, the wind was “doable,” and with Brandon now chomping at the bit, he prepped for a hunt.
Both Brandon and Josh hunted that day, with Brandon settled in his stand at about 4 p.m. It was warm, about 80 degrees, and by 7:20 p.m. he had yet to see a deer. With worries of a bad night creeping in, Brandon soon looked up to see a big deer wading through the beans, straight to him.
The deer moved so quickly Brandon never got a chance to stand, so he planned for a seated shot. That’s when the big deer moved in too close, to 10 yards with no shooting lane.
“Right then I’m thinking, how am I going to make this happen?” he said. “I had ranged everything around me, and as the buck starts moving away into a shooting lane, my brain is trying to remember. And my heart has never beat that hard. I could feel it in my hands, my wrist; I could even feel my artery beating in my shoe.
“Then I see a turkey feather on the ground, right at his feet, and I knew that was 27 yards,” he continued. “After the shot, that feather that I had ranged earlier was sprayed with blood.”
The double-lunged buck made a mad dash and jumped the field-edge fence at 45 yards, then made it another 40 yards into the woods. That’s where he was found sometime later by Brandon and three bowhunting friends who had shared in the multi-year chase.
“I heard the crash, and I could hear his legs kicking the ground as he expired,” Brandon recalled. “But I didn’t know I had him until I saw the arrow; then I knew everything was good.”
Brandon Burman’s giant 8 has an incredible 157 7/8 inches of antler without spread, as recorded by Buckmasters master scorer Dale Weddle. We had to be extra careful and double check the math since Brandon’s buck is a great example of what makes the BTR scoring system special.
If you search Buckmasters.com for the largest Perfect 8-pointers, you’ll find that an 8-pointer taken by Cullen Wood in Yazoo County, Miss., in 2019 has a bigger overall BTR score than Brandon’s buck (176 6/8 to 174 1/8). However, when ranking bucks all-time, Buckmasters doesn’t include spread. So, Brandon’s buck at 157 7/8 passes the Cullen buck’s score of 156.
To hear the podcast of Brandon Burman sharing more details of his amazing hunt, be sure to visit
https://youtu.be/vEzWQVe98kU