Rack Magazine

Kentuckian longs for the good old days when deer were more plentiful … but not necessarily bigger.

Chris Baldock had all the pieces of the puzzle in place to collect a trophy-sized whitetail in 2015. His family owns 700 acres of farmland in arguably Kentucky’s hottest big buck county.

Food for the deer is plentiful. There is a good mixture of hardwoods in the area, including oaks. Also, in addition to the crops the family grew, Chris has established several food plots. The farm has good bedding areas and adequate water sources, too.

Chris and his father, Dennis, were the only two people to hunt the property in 2015. They had placed 15 treestands in strategic locations.

It was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

On Nov. 15, 2015, it finally happened. Out stepped a bruiser weighing almost 300 pounds and sporting the biggest rack Chris had ever seen. The Casey County hunter had been preparing for that moment for most of his life.

“I’m 38 years old. Started deer hunting when I was 10 or 11,” Chris said.

Even at that early age, his parents could tell the youngster was serious about chasing whitetails.

“When I was 12, I had to go in the hospital with pneumonia,” Chris said. “I got out on Friday, and I went deer hunting the next morning. My dad was off hunting in another part of the state, so my mom went with me to make sure I was okay.

“Going into the 2015 season, I had taken 18 bucks. But I’d never managed to shoot a really big one,” Chris continued. “I used to bowhunt, but several years ago I had something happen that caused me to give up the bow.

“A giant buck came to within about 200 yards. It stayed around that same spot for almost two hours, and all I could do was watch,” he said. “I’d bet it was wearing around 200 inches of antler. After that, I’ve hunted only with a rifle or muzzleloader, something I can reach out and kill a deer with if I see it.

“We have several different types of stands set up on the farm. Three of those are Porta-Johns we put on platforms about 9 feet off the ground. We cut shooting windows out and put heaters in them, and they actually make good stands during bad weather,” he laughed.

“Dad and I have hunted together since I was little. We go to our 16x32-foot cabin on Friday before gun season opens, and we usually stay until we fill our tags.

“In the past, we’ve had family from Florida or Ohio come in and hunt with us, but this time it was just me and Dad,” he continued.

“By dark on Friday, we had everything set up at the cabin and steaks on the grill,” he added.

As father and son sat around and talked, they were particularly optimistic about shooting a special deer. Their neighbors had been collecting trail camera photographs of a giant whitetail they’d nicknamed Trash because it had several little stickers sprouting off a huge typical frame.

While the Baldocks had not retrieved any photos of Trash on their own camera, the buck was showing up close enough that it could easily wander onto their property.

“When we got up Saturday morning, my four-wheeler wouldn’t start,” Chris said. “Dad was going to spend all day in a place we call the Honey Hole. I decided to just walk up a holler to one of the Porta-John stands.

“That morning, all I saw was a little scrub 8-pointer. Our deer numbers are way down,” Chris said.

“In years past, I used to see 25 deer a day. It’s been rumored that we’ve had EHD in the area, but I’ve never personally found any dead deer that I thought died from that.

“For whatever reason, you just don’t see the deer around here that you used to,” he added.

“At 10:00, I got down out of the stand and walked back to the cabin. I ate lunch and napped. By 1 p.m., I was back in the Porta-John. I hunted until nightfall, but I didn’t see anything.

“Dad and I had been communicating by radio, and right before dark, he shot a 9-pointer. He came to pick me up, and we drug out his deer together,” he said.

“Dad slept in Sunday morning. I took his side-by-side and drove to a stand we call the Line Stand, which is near one of the property lines.

“It was a slow morning,” he said. “During opening weekend, you can usually hear a lot of shots being fired, but I hadn’t heard the first one. I decided I was going to hunt until 9:30 unless I saw something.

“About 9:00, the sun was high enough to shine in my face. Something moved in a thicket out about 100 yards. I thought it was a coyote, at first. Looking at it through my scope, however, I discovered it was a doe.

“While looking at her, I glimpsed sun shining off antler nearby,” Chris continued.

“When the doe came around to my right, the buck moved. It was trailing her. I scoped the antlered whitetail, and my heart skipped a beat. It was a good one!

“The buck was in brush, and I couldn’t get a shot. But it was moving toward an opening. There was a 2-foot-wide spot between a couple of red oaks out in front of the deer’s path. I put my scope on that gap and waited.

“I could see the buck coming out of the corner of my eye,” he added.

“When it walked into the opening at 88 yards, I shot the white spot of its neck, and the buck hit the ground. I lowered the gun and counted five whitetails leaving the country. I had been so focused on the big one following the doe that I hadn’t even seen the others.

“I got down and stood there for about five minutes, just allowing my nerves to settle while watching the deer to make sure it didn’t move. After I decided it was down for good, I walked over to it.

“When I saw the size of the buck, I hollered and whooped. I even patted myself on the back, because there wasn’t anyone else around to do it,” he smiled.

The field-dressed, 5 1/2-year-old buck weighed 264 pounds.

This article was published in the April 2017 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.

• Unencumbered by Experience: A little girl’s intuition puts her on the other side of the crosshairs from her first big buck.

• A Bow by Choice: This Kansan is making a name for himself in the record book. Here’s the 2013 buck that stole his heart.

• Domino Effect: The toppling of this public land Hoosier buck began with a terrible 2014 deer season.