Rack Magazine

Seeing a buck with double drops is enough to send anyone to a plat book.

Drew Miller leases 500 acres in Oklahoma, where the bucks are generally bigger. The land is less than an hour’s drive from his home in Paris, Texas.

The 33-year-old owner of an oil change business also holds the deed to property south of Paris, adjacent to a dairy farm where hunting isn’t allowed. Beginning in the summertime, he and his two sons, 7-year-old Logan and Derek, 3, ride around and glass fields about an hour to 90 minutes before dark.

“It’s more about hanging out together,” says Drew.

While checking a nearby cornfield in mid-August 2016, he spotted a giant buck with drop tines. The deer came out of a cedar thicket about a half-mile north of his property. Drew had always assumed the cedars were part of the dairy farm.

When looking at county maps, however, he realized the bedding area was on a little 6-acre property between his place and the dairy farm. He was further elated to discover the parcel belongs to a family friend.

Gaining permission to hunt the ground was as easy as knocking on a door.

Almost immediately, Drew mowed a 35-yard strip next to a fencerow, baited it, and set out a trail camera — a $300-plus model that sends photos to his cell phone. He’d borrowed the cell cam from his buddy, Roy McGraw, who swore by them.

The next afternoon, while Drew and his family were attending a children’s revival at his church, the drop-tined buck stepped in front of the lens. He had no cell phone service at the time, but Roy’s telephone number was also still programmed into the camera.

“When we came out of church, my phone just blew up,” Drew said. “There was like eight or nine voicemails from Roy.”

When he returned Roy’s call, he still didn’t understand what was so urgent. His friend tried to explain, but Drew didn’t grasp the meaning until he was back on the road and his phone began dinging, signaling the arrival of images.

“I looked down, and I had to pull over,” he said.

Except for a couple of days, the deer was photographed at least once or twice daily from then until the Oct. 1 bow opener.

“On those days when it didn’t show, I was convinced it was gone,” Drew said.

Drew did not sleep on the night before opening Saturday, even though he could’ve without consequence. He’d already vowed not to babysit the thicket in the mornings, so he could’ve slept as late as he wanted.

He was excited because a weather front had cooled things off significantly, dropping the afternoon temps from the 90s to the 50s, and the moon phase was optimal. Plus, the buck had passed in front of the camera’s lens both the previous morning and afternoon.

He was stoked.

“There’s always more buck activity immediately following a new moon,” he said. “I keep records of the moon phases. Notes on what I see. I probably go a little overboard with it, but I’m certain there’s something to it.”

That afternoon, he asked his wife, Brooke, to drop him off — sort of a rolling drop, since he hopped out of the back of the truck — near a Banks blind he’d brushed-in about 30 to 40 yards off the seldom traveled road.

He chose the drop-off method because he didn’t want to walk down the road or cut through the thicket and alert any deer that might be bedding in the cedars.

“I was in the blind and ready by 3:15, and that was a good thing,” he said. “That place was a zoo by 3:45. Lots of bucks. If I’d arrived any later, I’d have busted them out of there.”

The deer of his dreams had broken off two drop tines before Drew ever squeezed his crossbow’s trigger. He thinks those could’ve easily added another 20-25 inches to its already nearly 200-inch score.

He still can’t believe he shot a buck of this caliber in northeast Texas, on a tiny spit of land he doesn’t even lease.

“I’m used to having to lease lots of land,” he said. “I never dreamed I’d shoot something like this in my own back yard.”

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

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