When striking out to hunt deer, it often pays to listen to the voices in your head and the pings in your gut.
You know that inexplicable feeling that makes you look in a certain direction at just the right time, or to blow a grunt or bleat call at precisely the right moment?
Matt Moss does.
Intuition put the LSU-Shreveport Medical School student in the right place at the right time last year. Otherwise, there was no reason for him to go there. He surely didn’t realize he was going to shoot a buck that would set tongues wagging across the country as soon as its photo hit the Internet.
When Matt and his twin brother Brent left their home in Lake Charles on the morning of Dec. 29, 2014, and drove clear across Louisiana to their hunting lease in Jefferson County, Mississippi, he thought about one stand in particular.
“For some reason, I just wanted to hunt that stand. Several other deer had been taken from it,” he said. “I just wanted to try something new.”
The brothers arrived at the lease and made it to the woods right on schedule for an afternoon hunt. The spot Matt had been daydreaming about was a two-man ladder stand tucked 5 to 10 yards inside the woods flanking a small clover field. He chose to carry his .45-70 that day.
“I knew this field was small, and I like using my .45-70 because it’s light, and I can carry it up and down the tree easily,” he said.
The damp woods and mild temperature seemed ideal for hunting. Thirty minutes after settling into the stand, Matt heard the distant rustling of leaves and scoured the woods until he finally saw the flock of turkeys responsible.
About 4 p.m., he heard more noise — fairly close this time — and fully expected to see more turkeys. He was wrong, but not disappointed.
“I saw a deer with antlers about 50 yards from me. I really didn’t know how big it was, but as soon as I saw that (gnarly) rack, I knew I was going to shoot it,” Matt said.
After he’d committed, waiting for the opportunity to shoot gave Matt plenty of time to decipher the rack’s multiple beams.
The buck was keeping to the woods, skirting the food plot while looking for does. When it saw none, it turned to head deeper into the woods. Aware the deer was not going to come back, Matt took his shot when the animal passed through an opening at 40 yards.
The buck sped away after the boom.
After finding blood and confirming a hit, Matt sent Brent a text message saying he’d shot a big deer, though he couldn’t tell too much about its rack.
The brothers didn’t have any problem finding the prize at the end of the trail. And what they saw left them speechless.
“For about a minute or two, we didn’t know what to do,” Matt said. “We just kind of stood there in shock.”
The buck’s rack is truly something to behold. The right side has six beautiful typical points and three small stickers on the base. The left side carries five typical points and four irregular ones.
The longest of the abnormal points is the 22-inch beam.
“Another club member has a shed from this buck,” Matt said. “We believe it was a typical deer in 2013 and that it grew an additional 40 inches. We’re not exactly sure what happened.”
Hunter: Matt Moss
BTR Score: 209 2/8
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This article was published in the February 2016 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.
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