If Gregory Perry can be persuaded to join the Caldwell, Texas, chapter of Deer Hunters Anonymous, now’s the time.
The 32-year-old engineer and father of two pre-schoolers narrowly avoided an intervention last November. His family was convinced he’d lost his mind even before seeing the nobody’s-home look in his eyes at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
Before they could act, however, he got better.
Gregory suffers through his addiction every fall, but the 2017 hunting season tested the limits. Hoarding off-days to spend in a deer stand wasn’t new, but committing to all-day sits and considering the purchase of a bow were.
All because of one buck.
Gregory has hunted his in-laws’ place near Cameron, Texas, since 2012. It’s in Milam County, 50 miles from his Caldwell home. The property has yielded some great bucks over the years, but nothing in the same league as the one in the trail camera photographs he began collecting in August 2017.
In all, his 10 trail cams yielded at least 200 photos of the unique whitetail he began calling Stickers. He shot the big deer on Nov. 24, Black Friday, at 7:40 a.m.
He’d just cut short a telephone call with his father because he looked out his blind’s window and saw three does staring at something behind him: Stickers.
Gregory thought he missed, but his bullet shaved off the top of the whitetail’s heart.
After finding and admiring his deer, he texted his in-laws and sent them photos of the animal he’d once described to his mother-in-law as a $10,000 buck.
“I’d told her it was the type deer someone would pay $10,000 to shoot on a ranch,” he said.
This 212-pound deer was 100 percent wild.
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