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Have Hour, Will Hunt

Have Hour, Will Hunt

By Mike Handley

Nobody owns the shed antlers of the buck Stan Ethredge shot in 2017, and it wasn’t because the squirrels ate them.

The nearly 230-inch whitetail was wearing the same rack it carried in 2016, plus even more bone. The Mississippi fireman has the trail camera images to prove it.

Stan had been watching the deer on his Neshoba County property since 2014, when it was a clean 6-pointer. Ditto for 2015.

The irregularities sprouted from the 3x3 mainframe in 2016, and everything got a lot thicker with every passing month.

That explains why the hunter from Philadelphia, Mississippi, barely bothered to unpack upon his return from a family vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains on Oct. 20. Aware the neighbors had retrieved images of it, he couldn’t wait to check his trail cameras to see if the unique whitetail was still breathing.

He’d nicknamed the buck Big Nasty because the velvet-covered rack looked more like fungal growth than antler. He had numerous, mostly nighttime trail cam pics of the wonky whitetail, and he’d seen him twice on the hoof.

When Stan looked at the photos that day, he was thrilled to find several daytime shots of the deer in a food plot. He could barely contain his excitement and wasted no time in showering and heading to his stand.

When he struck out with barely an hour to hunt, he opted for a box stand next to the food plot. En route, he attached a pine-scented wafer to his clothing, which was still damp from scent-killing spray.

As the day was drawing to a close, a doe emerged from the brush and began feeding. Moments later, Big Nasty appeared about 40 yards from her.

Stan was abuzz with adrenaline while the buck meandered toward the stand.

When it hit the 30-yard mark, he squeezed his crossbow’s trigger. The skewered buck traveled only 75 yards.

Biologists later told Stan his buck’s velvet-covered rack was caused by a testosterone deficiency, probably due to testicular injury in 2016.

The 190-pound 36-pointer measured 227 3/8 inches.

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