"The Greg Wilmoth Buck"

Reprinted courtesy of BuckMasters and Rack Magazine

Greener Pastures
By Mike Handley

Photo: Greg Wilmoth and his son, Chase, pose with the Lawrence County, Mo., buck that has forever changed Greg’s opinion of the local whitetails. Had the deer not lost its nerve, it might still be feasting off the food meant for the farm’s 1,000 cows.

Have you ever taken a stand only to decide almost immediately that it just doesn’t feel right?

That’s exactly what Greg Wilmoth of Mt. Vernon, Mo., did last Nov. 19. And he might never have realized his mistake if the buck that had allowed the hunter to approach within 60 yards had remained hidden in its bed. Instead, the monstrous whitetail lost its nerve and, subsequently, its life.

In a matter of seconds, a wide-eyed Greg turned and fired at one of the biggest bucks ever to come out of the Show Me State’s southwestern reaches. And to think that the 44-year-old hunter had second-guessed his choice of stands and was heading back to the truck!

Photo: BTR scorer Jack McConnell scores one of his home state’s finest set of antlers — 22 points amounting to 2241ã8 inches, not counting the 20-plus inch inside spread.

Greg, his 16-year-old son, Chase, and cousin, Rob Miller, were hunting together that weekend on their 1,500-acre cattle farm in Lawrence County. On Saturday, the trio spotted a huge buck with a doe under a sycamore tree at 500 yards. Although they belly-crawled to within shooting distance, the deer had disappeared by the time they risked a second peek.

Even at that distance, Greg was sure that the buck was the same bruiser that he’d seen earlier during the fall of 2000. Back then, its enormous rack was still covered in velvet, and it was traveling with three or four bachelor companions. It also had to be the same buck whose 1999 shed had been found by a friend about a mile from there.

Between 1:00 and 2:00 that cold, overcast Sunday afternoon, the Wilmoths and Miller decided to revisit the corner of the property where they’d seen the big buck the previous day. The rut was red hot, and they felt sure that they would see something. The farm’s whitetails often bed up in the small thickets dotting the landscape, so it was simply a matter of choosing the right one.

Rob and Chase went to stand guard over a draw, while Greg took what he thought inwardly would be a “terrible” stand. He was convinced that his cousin and son were going to see the buck, if it showed at all. But that was sort of the luck of the draw, he added.

Greg parked his truck in the pasture, a sight so common that it should have alarmed neither deer nor cattle. Then he walked a couple hundred yards down a fencerow, still convinced that he was wasting time.

“The whole time, with every step, I’m thinking that I’m in the wrong place,” he said.

After pausing to survey his surroundings, Greg decided to return to his truck. He had taken no more than four steps when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something moving. The buck, which was accompanied by four does, stood up less than 60 yards behind him, on the same side of the fence. If Greg had continued walking the fencerow, he might have literally stumbled upon the group of bedded deer.

After Greg shot the buck, it stumbled before jumping over the fence and sprinting maybe 40 yards before the .270 barked a second time. The animal turned, jumped back over the fence and bolted across the pasture only to skid to a halt on the open ground. Both shots had obliterated the 245-pound buck’s boiler room.

“It happened so quick, I didn’t have time to think,” Greg said, admitting that he had no opportunity to consider the buck’s antlers before the shot. The only conscious thought he remembers came when the animal jumped the fence the first time and scampered 40 yards. “I thought I’d missed him until I remembered that he’d fallen. I’d knocked him down.

“I was confused. He was the first deer that I’ve ever shot that didn’t collapse on the spot,” he added.

When Greg walked over to his trophy, he knelt beside it and picked up the impressive rack. His first thought was: “Wow ... I’m the first human ever to touch this deer!”

The 5-year-old buck’s antlers were not common for southwest Missouri whitetails. Still, Greg just thought he’d taken a nice deer until they took the animal to his taxidermist, the last stop following three hours of taking the deer to friends’ homes.

“We didn’t know what I had until we took him to the taxidermist,” he said. “He laughed at me when he saw me, because he remembered hearing me say that I’d probably never have one of the local bucks mounted. They just don’t get that big here.

“When he actually saw it, however, he said, ‘My God, do you know what you have?’

“I guess I didn’t,” Greg continued, “until that point.”

He attributes the enormity of the rack to the minerals and food that he puts out and plants for his 1,000 head of cattle. “It’s got to be because of the nutrition, because the deer around here just don’t get that big,” he added.