Alabama's New No. 2 Xbow 'Semi'
By Mike Handley
While most Alabamians were crying foul over a 2022 video of a world-class whitetail crossing a paved road, at least one Huntsville man was a believer.
On Jan. 20 of that year, Hunter Terry was driving into the city to celebrate his birthday at a restaurant when he spotted an enormous buck and a doe next to the road. He had no doubt it was a 200-incher, a for-real one, which is about as common as sugar in grits.
Almost immediately, he began looking for huntable property in the vicinity, which was inside the limits of Alabama's largest city.
The 25-year-old construction supervisor from New Market searched for nearly a year before he connected with a high school friend who owns 80 acres. The man, who didn't hunt, gave Hunter permission to hunt his piece of Madison County.
Prior to Alabama's 2024-25 bow opener, Hunter put in two food plots and set up feeders and trail cameras. On the third day of archery season, he and a friend, Caleb Omelia, doubled — Hunter taking a 128-inch 8-pointer, and Caleb scoring a 130-incher.
Two months passed before Hunter retrieved a nighttime image of a true giant, which began passing in front of the lens every three or four days. Eventually, one of the deer's walkabouts was while the sun was shining.
The next few December days had unfavorable winds, so Hunter kept out of the area until well into January. He had numerous sleepless nights during the nearly two-week wait.
"I thought I had the buck figured out," he said. "I think it was bedding in a cedar thicket at the top of a hill."
The wind wasn't perfect on Jan. 9, 2025, but it was as close to a South wind as he'd had since the buck daylighted. Hunter's 28-foot-tall ladder stand is on a bluff, just 40 yards off a main highway.
The choice to hunt that stand, that day, was fortunate. At one point, Hunter saw two bucks and a doe approaching. One of the bucks was outstanding.
The doe eventually passed within 13 yards of Hunter's tree, a chip shot for his crossbow. The larger buck — the one from the trail camera photos — did the same.
"I tried to control my breathing, but it wasn't easy," Hunter said. "I could actually hear the buck breathing, though.
"When I realized which buck it was, I just kind of lost it. I forgot about the other one altogether. I don't know where it went."
After shooting the deer, Hunter called his father, struggling and failing to contain his emotions.
He also contacted the county's two game wardens the next day, so he could show them the kill site, where he'd left the arrow sticking in the ground. Wanting to nip any claims of poaching in the bud, he also showed them a 10-second video he'd taken with his phone, just before taking the shot.
"The only reason I fumbled with the phone was I kept thinking, Nobody's going to believe me if I miss this deer," he said.
Doing so was probably a sound decision, since others' trail cameras have shown the deer as far away as 4 miles. Plus, a hiker had found one of the deer's previous sheds on nearby public land.
The thing he remembers most?
"I finally got some sleep," he laughed.
Jay McFall scored the 14-pointer for Buckmasters, arriving at 191 5/8 inches. The mainframe 5x5's nearly 17 inches of irregular growth tips it into the Semi-Irregular category, where it occupies Alabama's No. 2 spot for crossbow-felled deer.