When the buck of a lifetime falls short of making history, the tape measure still reveals an impressive new recordbook entrant.
It’s not the new state record as hoped, but the owner of a monster of a KY whitetail arrowed last Nov. 1 with help from the many-featured HuntStand app won’t be losing any sleep over that particular sidebar, to what was a truly incredible hunt and unforgettable experience.
HuntStand users might recall that Jason Terry, 50, of Alabama, was the Week 9 winner of the HuntStand 2019 Big Buck Alert contest, after submitting the story and photos of a giant buck he arrowed Nov. 1 in western Kentucky. As we reported last fall, some initial attempts at green-scoring the buck’s unique rack had Terry believing the deer might be a candidate to challenge the current state state typical archery record of 188 2/8, a buck taken in 1996 by Tim Raikes in Marion County. However, that was not to be.
In January the Terry buck was officially scored by Pope and Young Club/Boone and Crockett Club measurer Dale Weddle of Kentucky, at the Smith Wildlife Artistry taxidermy shop in Calhoun, KY. The result was a net nontypical score of 196 5/8 (with a gross nontypical score of 203 6/8). That net nontypical score easily qualifies the impressive buck for both the Pope and Young Club recordbook (155 minimum) and Boone and Crockett Club recordbook (195 minimum).
Why was the buck not scored as a typical? As Terry explained, Weddle determined that what some might consider to be separate G2 and G3 tines on both the right and left side of the buck’s antlers, are actually fused together. That ruling, Terry explained, helped the overall nontypical score but greatly diminished its score as a typical. Look closely at the fine images enclosed in this feature (courtesy of photographer Josh Kassinger) and you can see the makeup of the tines in question. For the record, Terry, who is eagerly awaiting the completed mount of the deer that he will display prominently in his Alabama home, is not too disappointed about the final score, which netted the jaw-dropping buck entry into both prominent recordbooks.
“I know it’s a tremendous deer, and it’s not like I was upset when I got the text about its score falling short of the state record,” Terry said this week. “The primary reason I was excited at the potential for a state record, I was [hunting in Kentucky] with a group called Ironman Outdoors, a bunch of volunteers working to bring men together in the outdoors to talk about Christ. I was excited to give them a platform to get out their story a bit more.”
Through it all Terry continues to be a huge fan of the HuntStand app; during his November hunt in Kentucky he used the app to peruse the land and locate the stand site where the big deer was arrowed, and confirm the favorable wind the direction for the stand that day. He even used the app to help navigate to the winning stand. 
And his regular HuntStand app use continues; this week Terry was checking out a potential new hunting lease the day we discussed the official score of his 2019 trophy buck.
“I do love the HuntStand app; I use it regularly and even today,” he said. “We went and looked at a new piece of land and traced our path around it, and logged where I saw some existing shooting houses. But I really love the Real 3D view of my hunting properties, which saves a lot of time and effort for me; and if we go to a new place, I like that we can all log in and share the info and functionality of the app. We even have a HuntStand printed map hanging in our hunting camp, showing where all of our stands are located. I love the recent updates, keep up the good work.”
