A phone call from a friend, an unplanned detour and a stomachache combined in 2013 to force a Richland, Indiana, deer hunter into paying for taxidermy.
Dean Tharp might spend almost all his free time in the woods during deer season, but he's never considered himself a head hunter.
"If a buck has antlers just a little out past the ears, I'll take it," he told Gerald Almy, who wrote Dean's story for Rack magazine. "I have as much fun shooting does as bucks."
Dean works a three-week-on, one-week-off schedule. During his downtime in early November that year, he was running errands when a friend, Kevin Meece, called to say he'd spotted a drop-tined buck in a soybean field near property Dean could hunt.
Rather than ignore his chores completely, Dean decided to at least drive over and look for a climbable tree. He found one, left his stand, and then pushed some Bright Eyes into trees along the path so he could retrace his steps in the dark the next morning.
A stomachache kept him up for most of the night, however, so Dean wasn't able to hunt until about 1:30.
He'd been aloft about an hour and a half when a doe exited the woods from the west, just as Dean had predicted. A buck soon followed.
While Dean was watching it, he heard a stick break behind him and turned to see another buck - with a drop tine - at only 25 yards. In order to get a shot at it with his crossbow, Dean had to twist around in his stand.
The buck heard him, but it didn't react in time.
This Spencer County bruiser is a mainframe 5x5. All of its abnormal growth - 28 3/8 inches - is on the rack's right side. The 15-pointer's BTR composite score is 196 1/8.