Rack Magazine

It took five bullets in five years for this Mississippian to find a cure for insomnia.

Eddie Harrell of Lena, Mississippi, had a five-year history with the whitetail he shot in December 2015.

“I called him Phantom, and I dreamed about that deer at night. A day never passed that I didn’t think about him,” Eddie said. “He was the biggest buck I’d ever seen. I had three chances to shoot him, but I missed.”

As a 3 1/2-year-old in 2011, the whitetail was a huge 9-pointer.

This story should have ended that year, when Phantom was only 40 yards from Eddie’s treestand. Eddie could see the deer in his scope, therefore it was shootable.

“I really shouldn’t have taken the shot at the buck walking straight away from me,” he admitted. “It was so late in the evening, I couldn’t see the crosshairs in my scope. But I told myself, ‘You can’t take that deer if you don’t pull the trigger.’

“I aimed for the back of the buck’s head, 3 to 4 inches below his antlers. I later learned my bullet clipped his ear. I searched unsuccessfully for Phantom for several days,” he added.

Prior to the 2012 deer season, Eddie bought and set out five trail cameras and some feeders, hoping to lure the big buck to the lens.

After the season opened, Eddie spotted Phantom, now an 11-pointer, coming down a hedgerow, hooking bushes and stopping to make scrapes. Two hundred yards separated them.

Again, Eddie missed the deer.

In the off-season, Eddie planted crops for deer, built a shooting house, and put up a tripod stand on another part of the land. The deer was changing the way he approached hunting.

“Phantom appeared at about 360 yards late one afternoon during the 2013-14 deer season,” Eddie said. “The wind was blowing hard. My bullet just grazed him.

“Phantom had to be the luckiest deer that ever lived,” he added.

Eddie kept checking his trail cameras, always hoping to retrieve photos of Phantom. He was pretty sure the rack would score in the 170s or 180s.

“Rarely will anyone ever see a buck like this, have three chances to take him and miss all three times,” Eddie lamented. “This scenario was just about more than I could handle.”

In October 2015, Eddie put out trail cameras to try and find Phantom for the fifth year. On Dec. 1, 2015, the rain was pouring down, and Eddie knew he couldn’t do any work on his farm.

While having lunch at a restaurant with his buddies, Eddie announced, “I’m going to stay in my shooting house all day and see if I can get another shot at Phantom.”

The rain slacked up at about 4:00. Twenty minutes later, two does walked out in the pasture about 250 yards in front of Eddie.

“About two minutes later, while looking through my riflescope, I spotted Phantom. I could tell by his chocolate-colored antlers.

“He walked out of the woods and shook, and raindrops flew off his body in every direction,” Eddie continued. “I took a steady rest, put my crosshairs right on his shoulder, and squeezed the trigger.

“The buck ran out of the field, low to the ground, his tail tucked. So I was fairly confident I’d made a good hit,” he said.

When Phantom reached the edge of the field, he stopped and stood stock-still. Eddie waited for three or four seconds, confident the buck would collapse. When that didn’t happen, he took a second shot.

Eddie searched the spots where the deer had absorbed his bullets, but he couldn’t find any blood. He then went into the woods where he last saw the animal.

“I crossed a little branch and heard two deer blowing,” he said.

He thought they might be snorting at his buck, so he took that as his cue to stop for the night. Because the weather was cool enough for meat not to spoil, Eddie decided to head home and resume looking for the deer the following morning.

When he got home, he told his wife: “I’ve messed up. I’ve shot Phantom, but I still don’t have him.”

Phantom now was in Eddie’s brain again, and he couldn’t sleep until midnight. Thoughts of the massive deer eventually woke him at 4:00.

“I got up, put on my clothes and left my house at 6 a.m. in the dark,” he said.

Eddie then sat in his stand to wait on daylight. Soon, however, he climbed out with his flashlight and crossed the field. As soon as he entered the thicket, he veered toward where he’d heard the does blowing.

When he came to a small clearing, he saw something leaning up against a tree and lifted his rifle. When he peered at it through his scope, he recognized the deer.

“At first, I thought the buck wasn’t dead,” Eddie said. “I watched him for 10-15 minutes to make sure he wasn’t moving. Then I inched closer, ready to shoot if Phantom jumped up. But still he didn’t move. I couldn’t believe how big Phantom’s 12-point rack and body were.”

Finally, Eddie’s four-year obsession with Phantom had ended. As he dragged the buck out of the woods, the emotions Eddie felt were like the freeing of his soul from purgatory.

Now he could sleep at night, he realized.

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

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