The First Buck a Lifetime Hunter Takes is one for the Books

Jeff Bradley of Bedford, Texas, has proved that trophy whitetails are where you find them. He’s also demonstrated that old, abandoned peanut country in Central Texas can produce a monster whitetail that most hunters think only comes from South Texas. On Nov. l, 2008, Jeff killed his first whitetail buck—a 21-point that grossed 2071⁄8 and netted 200 Boone and Crockett (B&C). I’ll bet my horse and dog that it’ll be the biggest buck killed on open range in Texas during the 2008-’09 season. What’s more, Jeff was hunting on the family’s 700-acre lease in Eastland County, an area of sandy land better known for post oak, peanuts, and oil than it is for whitetail bucks.

Eastland County is located in the West Cross Timbers ecological region of Texas. The area was settled in the 1840s and, quite literally, taken away from the Comanche and Kiowa Indians. The county was created from parts of adjoining counties in 1858. Oil became an important discovery in the county in the 1920s, and Conrad Hilton built his first hotel in Cisco during that time. Today, small farms dot the countryside, and ownerships are rather minor. The soil is sandy, sometimes rocky, and the drainages flow east to the Leon River. It’s not what you would think of as big deer country. A check of the records showed that only one B&C buck has ever been recorded from Eastland County, and that one being a pickup, i.e., not hunter killed, back in 1920. That one and only record-book buck was a 19-point non-typical scoring 2037⁄8.

Jeff, a 30-year-old student at the University of North Texas at Denton, has a wife, Hannah, and two young children. Their girl is 4 and their boy is 2. Both he and Hannah work at a popular local restaurant on staggered shifts so that each can do their share of the child care. The whole Bradley family hunts—Jeff’s father, John, his brother, Jeremy, and Hannah, too. Jeff killed his first deer at the tender age of nine, but had never killed a buck—of any kind—until his record buck of last November. I say “record buck,” for Jeff’s trophy will certainly make the prestigious Boone and Crockett Record Book.

As a wildlife biologist and outdoor writer, I’ve been involved with deer hunters for 50 years, and I thought I’d heard every kind of deer hunting story—but when I heard the story of Jeff’s buck, I realized there’s always another story.

For starters, Jeff got away from home in such turmoil that he brought his 7mm magnum rifle, but forgot his shells.
“It’s not easy going hunting with your wife and two kids, and all the things that have to be loaded for such a trip. I just forgot my rifle bullets,” Jeff told me. “Hannah was going to hunt, and I was worried more about her equipment than I was about my own. I borrowed my dad’s Browning A-bolt .270 and some handloaded 130-grain Noslers. I wasn’t concerned that I had to use his rifle, because I knew it was sighted in and his handloaded shells were good.”

When Jeff told me he had hunted deer since he was a young kid, I wondered why he had never killed a buck.
“We’ve hunted a lot in Arkansas and East Texas,” Jeff told me. “I just never did get a good shot at a buck through the years.”
I couldn’t help but rib Jeff about Arkansas and East Texas.

“I understand exactly what you mean,” I told him. “I can see why you had never killed a buck—you were up against some stiff odds in Arkansas and East Texas.”

Jeff’s father, John, leased the 700 acres just southeast of Carbon in Eastland County in March 2008. Everyone was anxious to hunt the place, when the season opened Nov. l. Jeff got Jeremy, his brother, to take him to a homemade high-stand near some timber and thick brush, the latter of which was the results of a 2006 wildfire that burned about 30,000 acres in Eastland County, including the 700-acre deer lease. The vegetative regrowth after the burn was excellent for deer and could have been a factor in the antler growth on Jeff’s buck.

Jeff had gotten into his blind before daylight that eventful November morning, but he didn’t see much until about 9:30. Then suddenly two does appeared, both followed by a tremendous buck. The deer were close—only 30 yards away when Jeff first saw them. Jeff lost his cool, and by the time he regained his composure, the deer were about 100 yards away in the brush. The buck was fighting a small tree, literally making sawdust out of the bark.

“I couldn’t get a shot at the buck because he was constantly moving in the brush,” he said. In a few minutes, the deer were gone.
Jeff was kicking himself for not trying for a shot at the buck and wondered if he was going to go home empty handed again. He had the rifle up, moving the Zeiss scope through the brush, hoping to see the buck in the crosshairs. Then, almost like magic, Jeff and the big buck were staring at each other—Jeff looking through the scope at the buck looking straight at him. Without hesitation, Jeff pushed the safety off and squeezed the trigger as the crosshairs of the scope settled right on the white spot under the buck’s chin. His dad’s .270 roared, Jeff losing sight of the deer under the jolt of the recoil. Did he fall? Where did he go? Jeff wondered. Did I miss him? As he stared into the brush from the high-blind, a younger buck appeared and stood looking at Jeff.

“I came close to shooting the small buck,” Jeff told me. “I didn’t know if I’d hit the big buck, though, so I let the other buck go.”
After a few minutes, Jeff got down out of the blind and started searching for the buck. He could hardly tell exactly where the buck was standing. The re-growth brush from the fire two years earlier was so thick he wasn’t completely sure just where the deer had stood. Then he saw it—a large antler sticking up in the air above the ground several feet away in the brush. The buck was dead.

“I almost passed out with excitement,” Jeff told me.

Heck, he got excited again just talking to me about it! “The buck was huge. I tried to count the points, and almost lost my breakfast. I was on a real high.”

Jeff had a walkie-talkie and tried to contact his brother, but he was so excited he couldn’t operate the radio. He left the rifle with the buck and half-walked, half-ran back to camp about a half-mile away. Hannah was waiting there when he arrived, and Jeff told her he had killed a monster 21-point buck. Jeremy, in camp too, didn’t believe his brother. He thought the story was too much—it just couldn’t be. Hannah was a little more trusting though, and she and Jeff got on a four-wheeler and headed out to the hunting site. After a while, Jeremy finally decided that maybe his brother really had killed a huge buck, and so he followed the others to where the buck lay hidden in the brush. After photos, they loaded the buck and went back to the skinning rack near camp. Though the buck was not very large at 140 pounds on the hoof, he was aged at 61⁄2 years.

Danny Lee has a taxidermy shop in his home in Benbrook. Jeff had taken the head and cape to Danny for a mounting job. I met Jeff and the taxidermist at Danny’s house and scored the buck (of course the antlers will have to be rescored after the 60-day drying period as required by B&C).

“Best buck I’ve ever had my hands on in my 30 years as a taxidermist,” Danny said. Mike Hopkins, who had leased the land to the Bradleys as part of his hunting business, was also there.

“The buck was killed in the area called the Carbon Wildlife Management Association, just southeast of Carbon. It was established many years ago by several landowners who wanted to produce better deer and other wildlife in the area,” Mike told me. (Mike operates under the name of 4J Hunting and has several leases in the area. He can be reached at 817-366-9983.) I suspect that the Association was set up years ago so that the old Texas Game and Fish Commission (later Parks and Wildlife) would stock whitetail deer in the area.

Jeff’s buck had some pretty awesome antler statistics. Inside spread was 263⁄8 inches, and the longest beam was 27 inches. Brow tines were five-plus inches; G-2s were 10 and eight inches; G-3s were 10-plus; G-4s were nearly five inches; and mass was 35 inches. The net typical was 1691⁄8, with 307⁄8 inches of non-typical antler. The gross score was 2071⁄8, and the net score was 200 B&C. Not bad for a peanut field buck!

Try to picture this: Texas has roughly 550,000 deer hunters. They annually kill about 250,000 bucks. On open range, less than five will come close to netting 200 B&C. I’m not sure that Jeff Bradley has yet realized that he has likely killed one of the biggest bucks to come off open range in Texas in several years—and it was his first buck!