Rack Magazine

Trading a warm bed for a deer stand is a small price to pay for a dream buck.

The big buck ran about 30 yards, stopped, and then slowly disappeared into the fog. Trey Hutchison thought his arrow might have struck it low, but he wasn’t sure. Either way, he called his dad.

When Jim Hutchison arrived shortly thereafter, he listened to his 16-year-old son’s story. Rather than take up the deer’s trail, they decided to first get some breakfast.

Trey was hunting his family’s 600-acre farm in Union County, Kentucky. He’d taken his first buck there 11 years earlier, and 11 more since.

He’d dedicated his seasons to bowhunting after arrowing a 150-something 14-pointer on Halloween in 2012.

“It was the first time I let him hunt by himself, and I was a little nervous about it,” Jim admitted. “He had the day off from basketball practice, but I had to work. So I dropped him off close to his stand.

“He called me a little bit later and said, ‘I just killed a giant,’” he added.

In 2014, the Hutchisons retrieved a trail camera photograph of an impressive buck with an irregular rack. Trey held out for it, hoping to get a crack at it with his bow. He even passed up a nice 10-pointer that Kristen, one of his sisters, later shot.

His other two sisters, Lauren and Alex, hunt as well, so there’s usually no shortage of venison in the family freezer.

The season ended with Trey’s target buck presumably escaping as no one in the family shot it, and there were no reports of neighbors tagging it.  The deer’s survival was confirmed early in 2015 when it began showing up regularly in trail cam photos.

By the beginning of the 2015 deer season, the Hutchisons had accumulated 471 quality photos of deer.

The buck with the crazy rack — they counted at least 18 points — was definitely a regular on their farm.

Despite bowhunting diligently where the big deer was photographed, Trey couldn’t seem to be in the right place at the right time. He hunted all of September and most of October before he first saw the whitetail in the flesh.

Trey remembers that day well.

“I was bowhunting from a hang-on stand on the afternoon of Oct. 25,” he said. “I could see an alfalfa field that deer had been hitting pretty hard. We had gotten just three photos of the big deer in this particular area, but I decided to hunt it anyway.

“Around 5:45, I looked up, and the big buck was about 80 yards away, walking toward me.

“As soon as I saw it, I started shaking. The deer was much, much bigger than anything I had ever shot before, and it was coming right at me.

“The buck was heading toward a corn pile. It stopped at the edge of the tree line and looked at the corn. Then, it just turned and walked out of sight,” Trey said.

When it was dark, the still rattled hunter got down, pulled the card from a nearby camera, and went home. The buck had almost come within bow range, but it just wasn’t to be that day.

When Trey checked the card, he discovered the big deer had been there the previous evening at about the same time. Yet the deer never returned while Trey was there.

Like many mature bucks, this one seemed to know where and when it was being hunted.

On Tuesday, Nov. 10, three days before the state’s gun season opened, Trey took advantage of a few hours of daylight before school. That meant rolling out of bed pretty early. 

“I remember Dad saying, ‘Trey, it’s a quarter after 5:00,’” he said.

That was 45 minutes later than the young bowhunter had been rising.

“I got ready and got in my Jeep, but there was a heavy fog. I could barely see the road,” Trey remembered. “I had to drive about 40 miles an hour because of the fog. But it was still too dark for shooting when I arrived.

“I got out of the Jeep, sprayed scent-killer on my boots, and walked to the stand. After climbing, pulling up my bow and nocking an arrow, I fell asleep.

“I guess I was asleep for about 10 minutes. When I woke, there was a 4-pointer at my corn pile. It fed for a while and left.

“About 10 minutes later, the big one appeared out of the fog. It was about 20 yards away. I thought Oh, my gosh, and tried to stand quietly.

“The buck looked in my direction, and I eased back down. When it looked down, I stood and got my bow ready. I tried to range the deer, but the rangefinder wouldn’t work because of the fog.

“The buck walked over to the corn. Then it started slowly walking away. I drew my bow. When the deer stopped, I put the pin on it and released the arrow.

“The shot looked low,” he continued. “The buck ran about 30 yards, stopped, and then slowly walked into the fog.”

The whole scene unfolded so quickly that Trey didn’t have time to get the shakes. Those came afterward.

“I called Dad, and he came to pick me up,” Trey said. “We decided to give the buck a little time before we followed it, so we went to eat breakfast. After about an hour, we went back to the spot where I last saw the buck.

“My Uncle Matt Hutchison came to help us track. We took the card out of the camera by the stand to see if we could determine where the arrow hit, but it was too foggy. My mother, Amy, came to help. She was the one who found the arrow.

“At first glance, it didn’t seem to have any blood on it. Closer inspection revealed some blood near the end, where the shaft had broken off.

“I started walking in the woods in the direction the buck ran. After about 15 yards, I found blood everywhere. Dad walked another 10 yards and stopped. He didn’t say anything, even though he’d seen the buck.

“He let me track the blood trail up to the deer and find it. I looked around a tree, and there it was,” he said. “The size of the rack was just awesome. I didn’t know what to say.”

Hunter: James Hutchison III
BTR Score: 200
View BTR Score Sheet

This article was published in the June 2016 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.

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