When Tyler Pikowski acquired his deer hunting permit last fall, he had no idea it would double as a rollercoaster ticket.
The 32-year-old hunter from Effingham, Illinois, was after an incredible whitetail, but he was determined not to pursue it unless the wind was blowing out of the north or northwest. On Nov. 22, opening day of the state's first firearms season, he got his wish.
"I heard 70 shots that day, and trucks were parked every 100 yards beside the roads," he said. "Every time I heard gunfire, I just knew someone had killed that deer."
After several days of grapevine silence, however, Tyler's hopes began rebounding. The demise of such a deer would surely loosen tongues, right?
Just when he was ready to believe his Most Wanted was still alive, a friend steered him toward a Facebook video of a giant Illinois buck shot in velvet.
"I watched that video 20 or 30 times before I decided it wasn't the same deer," he said. "What a relief! That one was maybe a 20-pointer, much smaller than the one my dad and I were after."
That disappointing day aside, Tyler's season had already started off slowly.
Following the loss of his uncle to cancer in the summer of 2024, Tyler's enthusiasm for deer hunting waned. He couldn't even muster the will or energy to set out his trail cameras until mid-October, two weeks into the Land of Lincoln's archery season.
The refrigeration factory supervisor got his groove back by the end of the month, however, when a cell cam sent him an image of a buck while the man was in bed.
"I couldn't believe it was real," he said. "I wound up texting my dad, Rob Martin, saying we had a target. From there, it was game ON."
Tyler and Rob mainly hunt 80 acres in Jasper County, halfway between St. Louis and Indianapolis. Only the 12 acres in the northwest corner are wooded; the rest was cut cornfield. The guys decided not to hunt the lot without a cooperative wind.
Tyler was eager to hunt that corner. He'd arrowed a couple of deer in the 160s there previously, and he'd taken a fine buck with his muzzleloader as well.
"You gotta be careful when hunting a buck of that caliber," he said. "It clearly wasn't living on us, so any ill-timed incursion could force it to leave and never come back through."
Meanwhile, they continued collecting one or two photos of the unique animal every seven to 10 days, "just enough to know we were still in the game," Tyler said. "It was still alive, at any rate."
Tyler didn't take advantage of the chance to bowhunt the deer during Thanksgiving week. Instead, he studied the weather predictions for the state's second, Dec. 5-8 firearms season. The forecast called for wintry conditions and strong winds, perfect for attracting deer to cut cornfields to stoke their furnaces.
"I was optimistic the whole week," he said. "On Thursday morning that week, opening day, I decided to burn some vacation hours that afternoon.
Tyler has a 900-yard walk across the open cornfield to reach the wooded corner. Rather than go to his time-tested bow stand. he opted to stay on the ground, backing up behind a tree, even if it meant he'd have to stand the whole time.
For much of the afternoon, Tyler was disappointed. Up to an hour before dark, he saw only one yearling buck, and it wasn't particularly interested in eating.
"I was expecting movement early and often," he said. "Didn't happen."
Eventually, two deer emerged from a distant tree line to feed in the stubble. One was clearly larger than the other, and he could tell it had antlers, even from 250 yards. A glance through binoculars told him it was his target buck with a doe.
"They weren't rutty," he explained. "They were just moving slowly, eating."
When they'd come 15 yards closer, Tyler heard a distant dog barking and decided to put his grandfather's .444 Marlin to the test against the broadside animal.
After he squeezed the trigger, he saw the buck rear up and then collapse on the spot.
"I took off running, dressed like a snowman, and reloaded en route to the deer," he said. "Dad was hunting across the road, and he'd heard the shot. He began texting almost immediately, but I couldn't answer because I was running."
Standing next to the still-alive buck, Tyler answered his father. He explained that it was the big one, and it was still kicking. "I'm going to shoot it again," he told him.
"But I kept seeing blood in the deer's mouth, signifying some sort of lung shot, so I changed my mind and let down my guard," he continued. "Of course it jumped up and ran toward the trees 45 yards away."
A second shot flew wide, and the buck made the timber, leaving a red carpet in its wake.
It took its last breath 35 yards into the woods, and that's where Tyler administered the coup de grace.
"That deer had an unpleasant smell to it I'll never forget," he said. "I think it was the blood beneath the velvet. This rack was not fluffy. It wasn't soft like rabbit fur.
"Anyway, with all that had happened, was happening, it almost felt like an out-of-body experience," he added.
Dad arrived shortly afterward with the side-by-side.
POST MORTEM
Turns out, the deer had only one testicle, which probably explains why the rack was still in velvet. It was also carrying a shotgun slug in its shoulder, which could be the reason the antlers packed on an other 100 inches in all directions from when they collected a photo of it a year earlier.
They didn't make the connection with the year-old photo until later. The 2023 version showed a drop tine, which they now realize was probably a strip of velvet hanging. The deer was far more normal otherwise that year, probably a 170- or 180-class specimen.
After Tyler posted a photo of the buck on Facebook a couple of days later, other hunters sent him trail cam images, though nobody claimed to have wounded the animal in 2023.
Tyler drove four and a half hours to have Toby and Lori Hughes measure his 37-pointer for Buckmasters. After two and a half hours, the tally came to 285 inches, a new world record among velvet-clad whitetails felled by centerfire rifle.
"The deer's the story here. I'm just the guy who was in there at the right time," he said.
