Worlds Biggest Typical: 205 1/8 Archert Velvet Buck

Worlds Biggest Typical:
205 1/8 Archery Velvet Buck
By Tim Roberts

At the start of the hunting season, I remember telling my wife that I hoped it would finally be my turn this year to shoot a large buck. What an understatement that turned out to be. My yearly Colorado hunting trip was fast approaching and I prepared anxiously. Just a few weeks earlier, I thought I was going to have to cancel my hunting trip altogether due to an unpredictable work schedule. I was extremely relieved when everything fell into place. I look forward to this trip every year. It’s the best camp trip in the world; public land where the local cowboys have become good friends and everybody gets along so well, it makes it more than just a hunting trip.

After about 26 hours of driving, my hunting party and I arrived at the mountain and began setting up camp and settling in. The next few days were spent scouting. We glassed lots of different areas and talked to the cowboys about what they were seeing. I decided to start my hunt in an area that I had hunted the first year I went. With both an elk and a mule deer license, I knew I was entering an area where I might end up pursuing either one. The morning hunt was fairly uneventful although I did walk into a couple of deer. The bigger buck spotted me and left immediately; the other buck was a nice 4×4 but just not big enough. The buck and I looked each other over for a couple of minutes before he turned and left. A little later, I caught some elk moving through, but there was no shooting that morning.

That afternoon, I went back to the same area; it was cool and misty as afternoon turned into evening, perfect for slipping around the hillside. As I made my way from one patch of oak brush to the next, I could hear some cows talking in the distance with an occasional bugle from what sounded like a younger bull. Even though the bull sounded young, I still wanted to get a look at him. It sounded like the herd was coming my way, so I held up in some cover with the wind in my face. It kind of had the feeling of an ambush. As I was watching intently in the direction of the elk, a doe popped out and slowly wandered by on my uphill side about 25 yards away. I could still hear the elk and knew that I was running out of daylight. I was just about to head toward the herd when I saw a buck coming down the same trail as the doe. The buck was coming fast and I had no time to think. I drew my bow as soon as I saw this bad boy, there was no doubt that he was a shooter. I moved my bow from one opening to the next trying to pin this deer. As I swung into the last opening ahead of him and got my pin on his shoulder, I let the arrow fly. I never even thought about trying to stop him first, but I hit him. I just wasn’t sure how well. The buck bounded and disappeared for a second as I moved to watch where he was going. The buck hadn’t gone 15 yards from where I shot him. I watched him with my binoculars and he was not moving a muscle. Because of the thick winterberry bushes, I couldn’t tell if he was down or standing. He was facing dead away from me and, as reality set in, I quickly realized that I better shoot him again.

It took me forever to sneak around for a better angle. During this time, I had yet to see this buck so much as wiggle an ear, I was sure that I must have hit him. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I pulled my bow back, the buck started walking. He was looking completely the other direction and he had no clue that anything out of the ordinary was going on. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This big, beautiful buck was standing there and, once again, I was losing daylight and maybe my mind. I couldn’t screw this up. The last thing I wanted to do was bump this deer on a rainy night with marginal shots. I slowly started crawling through the brush back into shooting range. I crawled to about 35 yards and realized that the buck’s vitals were partially covered by a patch of winterberry. I figured that I would have to shoot and try to drop it in just over the brush. I shot, but it was high, right where I had aimed, dang it! As I got up to the spot where the buck had been standing, I was surprised to see that he was only about 50 yards up the hill with his rear toward me and looking the other way again.

Now it was getting dark and plenty of time has passed since my first shot. I circled around and lost sight of the buck. I quickly decided to go back where I had started and not risk pushing this magnificent animal. Hunting with me that evening was my son, Justin. I knew he was probably just a few hundred yards away, so I got him on the radio and told him that I would like to at least look for blood in the area where I first shot. What a good day to not have a flashlight! Justin and I both have Rhino GPS units, so he was able to walk right to me. The only light he had was one built into his hat and the bulbs were green - you couldn’t see blood with that thing. My buddy, Danny Briggs, had been listening to our radio conversation and was on his way to where we were. Still trying to be very quiet, we spent just a couple of minutes looking for blood. Judging from the way the buck acted, I didn’t think he would go far, but I didn’t think he would die right away either. And so began a very long night. We really thought it was going to rain that night and, although it was hard to do, we thought the best chance of recovering him was to wait until morning.

Thankfully, it never rained that night. We had a big camp that year of about eighteen hunters. There were a few in our group that were going to be hunting near that area anyway and offered to help track down my buck. I wanted to look by myself first because I thought I might still have to hunt this deer down. As the sun rose the next morning, I found myself on a blood trail, one that wasn’t too bad at first. It lead to a place where the buck bedded down not 50 yards from where I had last seen him. There were a couple more beds after that. I’d only covered about 100 yards before I lost blood.

After sneaking around that area for a while, the guys started calling on the radio to see how I was doing. Now I was glad to have help. Justin and Danny showed up and we were soon joined by Mike Every and Brian Taylor. We all started combing the woods. We all met at the top of the hill at a new blood trail. As we shed some of our layers, we devised a plan. Three of us would circle ahead and two would stay on the blood trail. About a minute after we split up, Brian radioed, “Your buck is over here.” I had told these guys that the deer was big, but I guess I never told them how big because when they saw that deer they couldn’t believe it. I soon got to see the buck that for about sixteen hours I wondered if I’d ever see again. Wow, what a monster!

My buck is a 5×6 with a 33 1/2-inch outside spread. After plenty of thank you’s and congratulations, we headed back to camp with the buck. Waiting for us there was my good friend and taxidermist, Steve Snapp, who quickly went to work. Little did he know that just a few days later he would bag an even wider 4×5, but that’s another story.

Several bulls, bucks and cows hit the ground that week due to an awesome group of Michigan archers. We even had the Division of Wildlife in camp checking us out, but we think they just wanted to see the two monster mulies.

Tale of the Tape
Number of points 6×5
Inside spread 27 0/8
Total deductions 4 1/8
Total mass 38 3/8
Total gross score 209 2/8
Total net score 205 1/8

Right Antler
Main beam length 25 0/8
Length G1 3 0/8
Length G2 18 5/8
Length G3 15 0/8
Length G4 12 2/8
Circumference H1 5 4/8
Circumference H2 4 7/8
Circumference H3 4 2/8
Circumference H4 4 5/8
Total 93 1/8

Left Antler
Main beam length 25 6/8
Length G1 2 5/8
Length G2 18 4/8
Length G3 14 3/8
Length G4 11 4/8
Circumference H1 5 4/8
Circumference H2 4 7/8
Circumference H3 4 2/8
Circumference H4 4 4/8
Total 91 1/8

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