When Steven Gootee shouldered his rifle on Nov. 17, 2019, he had no idea he was aiming at the deer at the top of his wish list. He knew only that it was a buck.
He’d hunted the impressive whitetail in 2018, even in the rain, to no avail. The following year, he’d collected trail camera images of it, and his cousin Miah had encountered the animal twice during Indiana’s archery season.
Clearly, the giant either lived on Steve’s 44 acres in Jennings County, or it passed through regularly.
It’s no longer there, however.
“Two days into the gun season, our hunting crew woke at 4 a.m. to the sounds of Uncle Mike cursing the electric coffeemaker, which had given up the ghost. Thankfully, I remembered a spare coffeemaker in the storage camper that would come to the rescue once we cleaned out the mouse and/or roach droppings from the pot.
“While we waited for the first pot to brew, the conversation turned to the day’s stand selection,” he continued. “We were all gunning for the giant buck we’d seen in trail camera photographs.”
Steve opted for a blind 70 yards downhill and five minutes from camp. He carried a Thermos filled with coffee to keep warm.
Turkeys came through at sunrise, and he saw a lone doe about 8:30. Three hours later, he spotted the day’s second deer on a ridge to his left. It was 100 yards away, but coming closer, casually weaving in and out of the shadows.
“I slowly reached for my gun and rested it on the log in the front of my blind,” Steve said. “Then I saw the flash of antler and knew it was a buck.”
He didn’t recognize the whitetail at the time.
Steve got off two shots at the deer, and it fell before he could fire a third. The initial slug sheared off the top 3 1/2 inches of an antler tine, which the gang found while scouring the area later.
The buck is the third-largest, rifle-felled whitetail ever recorded from Indiana. Its BTR score of 249 1/8 inches makes it one of the finest deer taken in the U.S. last year.
— Read Recent Blog! Ohio Hunter Gains Fifth Record-book Listing: The Morrow County 16-pointer has a BTR score of 195 1/8 inches.