Rack Magazine

The rain in Woodford County, Kentucky, falls mainly on the mane, or it once did.

Whitetail aficionados often speak of trophy-sized bucks as being different animals altogether. Their primary reasoning is: A mature white-tailed buck, having survived multiple hunting seasons, is much more wary and harder to hunt than the average doe or young buck.

A second reason for bestowing different-animal status on these super deer is because big-bodied male whitetails are physically stronger, have more stamina, and are harder to take down than a pubescent buck.

In November 2015, Mark Lunsford ran head-on into the second part of the super-buck equation. Mark’s reward for perseverance during the resulting seven-hour encounter – a wide-racked brute with split brow tines and a composite score of 2075/8 inches — is now sitting on a pedestal in his home in Brodhead, Kentucky.

“Oh, my Lord, look what a deer, Mark!” Teresa Lunsford exclaimed. Her husband slammed on the brakes and quickly backed up for a better look. The monstrous whitetail was coming out of a soybean field on the property adjoining the 200-acre farm Mark had hunted the past two years.

“It was Sept. 9, and the buck’s antlers were already boned out,” Mark said. “There wasn’t a bit of velvet left on them. When I saw the size of that rack, I liked to have died.

“I knew right away I was looking at the biggest buck I had ever seen. Those split brow tines made that deer’s rack easy to identify.

“There was an alfalfa field on the other side of the soybeans where we saw the buck. A gap in the fence between the two fields was a natural travel path for deer moving into and out of the field,” he continued.

“That weekend, I put a trail camera at the gap. When I checked the camera a week later, I had a photo of the big deer coming through there,” he added.

Mark’s upcoming deer season took on new meaning.

“The farm I was hunting in Woodford County, where I saw the big deer, is mostly wide open except for some fencerows,” Mark said. “The alfalfa and soybean crops are natural magnets for early season bucks looking to pack on weight.

“Those deer have to travel across open pasture fields from bedding areas located on adjoining farms. In between that travel corridor is a little thick woodlot about a quarter-acre in size. It has a pond in it and a creek running through it,” he said.

“There’s a walnut tree overlooking the pond that I like to climb. I don’t use bait. I just try to let deer go through their natural movements and figure them out,” he added.

Mark had determined that deer used the little woodlot in transition from their bedding areas to the crop fields. He planned on hunting the spot during the rut, whenever he had a chance to take a day off from work.

Mark builds houses for a living, and it’s hard for him to get into the woods before construction season slows. That usually means he can’t get afield until sometime in October. By the time he was able to go hunting for the big buck, almost a month of Kentucky’s archery season had already passed.

“It was around the first of October before I finally got a day off to hunt,” Mark said, shaking his head. “I had not gotten any more photos of the giant buck after the one of him going through the gate. Since he had to cross two highways going to and from the bean field, I was afraid he had been hit by a car.

“When I finally got over there to hunt, I slipped into the little woodlot before daylight and climbed the walnut tree. As the morning drug on, I saw does and some little bucks.

“After taking a break to eat, I saw a few more small ones, but nothing of any size that day,” he continued. “I probably bowhunted another five or six times and hunted Sunday of the early muzzleloading weekend, but saw only one doe that day. I was thinking more and more that I would never see the big one again.

“The first week of November, around the 7th, I checked a trail camera on an abandoned road that went up to an old house place on the farm,” Mark said. “It’s in a low spot between the fields, and deer travel through there a lot.

“I had a photo of the big buck going up the logging road. It was still alive! After that, I could hardly rest thinking about that big deer, but I still had work to do.

“On Thursday, Nov. 12, I received a phone call from the woman who owned the farm I had been hunting. She told me two guys from New York had stopped by and asked her to hunt.

“Modern gun season was coming in the following Saturday, and they were out looking around. She said they told her they had just seen the biggest buck of their lives in her field.

“The lady wouldn’t give them permission to hunt. She told them ‘No, that’s Mark’s deer.’ After she hung up, I told my work hands, ‘I’m going hunting in the morning.’

“I was so torn up that night I couldn’t sleep. When I left the house to hunt the next morning, all I could think of was that big buck,” Mark said. “My wife told me later that I even forgot and left the door open.

“There was a big frost on,” he added. “I knew the rut would be kicking in, and the deer movement was going to be hot and heavy. It took me about an hour to drive to the farm.

“I always walk in to my stand without a flashlight. After going about a quarter-mile, it was getting daylight, and I saw a buck running a doe. I thought: Boy, I need to hurry. They’re on!

“I got to the walnut and started climbing. My stand was popping and cracking in the cold. There was a buck out about 70 yards, and it started blowing at me. The walnut bark was falling all around me, and I thought, Man, I’m not going to kill anything!

“Finally, I made it up the tree and got settled in. It was quiet again. In about 15 minutes, I started seeing deer. There were three does and a small 6-pointer about 300 yards away.

“Then I saw a little 4-pointer come through. It was about 7:15 or 7:30. I saw another buck and two does out about 300 yards following the same route the other deer had taken. I got my binoculars up, and the first thing I saw was the split brow tines. It was the big buck!

“If the deer continued on the same route the others had taken, I wouldn’t have a chance at a shot,” Mark said. “I started calling at the deer using buck grunts and doe bleats. It kind of looked my way, but didn’t respond.

“Then I used a buck roar, and it started coming,” he added.

“The buck slowly walked another 50 yards or so before it locked up. The does had also been working their way toward me off to the side, and they stopped, too,” Mark said. “I did some more bleats.

“The split-brow buck was at about 250 yards at that point, and when it turned to walk away, I roared again.

“The deer turned, dropped its ears back into a fighting posture, and started coming toward me again. At about 100 to 150 yards, it stopped and turned like it was going to leave.

“When I hit the buck roar a third time, it turned and came all the way in to about 50 yards,” Mark continued. “It was walking at a little bit of an angle until it hit a fencerow, and then it started following it in my direction.

“When the buck came up even with my stand, it acted like it wanted to jump the fence away from me. I eased the call up from my coat and roared one more time. It came to 30 yards and stopped, looking the opposite way,” he said.

“I’d been standing the whole time. When the buck turned to leave, I pulled the bow, settled the pin below its shoulder blade and shot.

“I didn’t see the arrow hit,” Mark said. “The deer flew out of the woodlot, ran a half-circle and stopped about 150 yards in a wide open field.

“The shot felt good, but I didn’t know where I’d hit that deer. Through binoculars, I could see blood running down its back leg. The buck’s nose was down almost to the ground, but it would not fall.

“It stood like that for almost 10 minutes, and then just walked away like nothing had happened.

“I knew I needed to keep my eyes on it, so I got down and took off running to keep the deer in sight. About 500 yards away, I saw it go down into a creek. I could still see it standing there, so I just watched through the binoculars for about 30 minutes. I started thinking, Maybe I made a bad shot.

“I had left everything at my stand, so I walked back and got my backpack, phone and other stuff. I called Teresa and told her what had happened. She started celebrating, but I said, ‘He ain’t dead yet.’

“I went back to the last spot I had been watching and saw the buck still standing. I watched it for another hour, and then it moved about 50 more yards and stood for another 30 minutes.

“I went to the truck and got some coffee. When I went back about an hour later, I slipped in from another angle and watched the deer for three hours. By then it was midday, so I went back to the truck for another hour and ate lunch.

“When I returned, I couldn’t see the buck. I glassed the area where it had been for 30 or 40 minutes, but couldn’t see any sign of it. I had marked where it had been in relation to twin sycamores, so I snuck down to them.

“When I arrived, there was no deer. Nothing. I thought, He’s died and fallen down the creek bank! I spotted a couple of flecks of blood. Two buzzards flew up out of the creek. I looked down that way and could see a deer in the creek.

“When I got there, it was a dead doe that had been there for a while. I started to get disgusted,” he said.

Still determined, Mark pressed onward until he was finally able to administer a coup de grâce seven and a half hours after taking his first shot.

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

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