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Kentucky’s Finest from 2019

Kentucky’s Finest from 2019

By Mike Handley

Spencer Loftus might have switched zip codes in 2018, trading life in Whitetail Wonderland for a Massachusetts hamlet. But that didn’t stop him from returning to his old Kentucky home with his bow.

Before he left that year, he set up several trail cameras, which his father agreed to monitor. They amassed several summertime photos of an incredible deer, and Spencer couldn’t wait to return to Christian County when bow season opened.

He saw the brute he coveted the very first evening. It was in range, but a tree blocked any hope for a shot. The rest of the weeklong hunting vacation was uneventful.

Between then and mid-October, the deer lost half its rack, presumably while fighting another buck. The right beam had snapped off just past the brow point.

The giant was safe for the remainder of the 2018 season.

Spencer resumed hunting it the following September. Fully aware the big whitetail’s rack was bigger and better than ever, he passed up a chip-shot at a 160-something-incher opening weekend.

That act of self restraint might be the best decision he’s made as a deer hunter.

“Monday was between 95 and 100 degrees and clear. As twilight approached, I looked to my right and saw white antlers bobbing through the woods about 80 or 90 yards away,” he told Dale Weddle, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “It came to within 15 yards.”

Spencer found his skewered prize two days later, which is evident in the field photos of him and the deer. The animal had sought sanctuary where it often bedded.

With a BTR score of 225 inches, Spencer’s is the largest whitetail harvested in Kentucky during the 2019 season.

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