Studiers of hunters’ heartbeats say the physical exertion required to drag a dead deer out of the woods could result in a heart attack, meaning 51-year-old Greg Jenne must be in pretty good shape.
The hunter from Bridgewater Corners, Vermont, gave his ticker quite a workout last November. Shooting a new state record was relatively easy. Dragging it to his truck: Not so much.
Greg was hunting unposted paper company land, a 200-acre parcel he’s visited for nearly three decades.
“I hunt that same woods road once or twice every year, though I’d never taken a deer there (before Nov. 15, 2020),” he told John E. Phillips, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “In Vermont, any land that’s not posted can be hunted.”
He arrived before daylight and still-hunted along a 20-year-old logging road, ultimately arriving at a clear-cut. When a drizzling rain began an hour and a half after he began glassing the expanse, he decided to return to his truck.
Judging from the dark clouds rolling in and the falling temperature, he knew he would get a lot wetter if he stayed until sunset.
As soon as he stood, however, he spotted a deer at the edge of the timber.
When he looked at the buck through his .30-06’s scope, he knew immediately he was going to shoot it.
“I took my gloves off in order to shoot better, and then I reached for the trigger,” he said. “I had the wind in my face.”
The minute the deer cleared a tree, he took the shot. He had no idea how many points its rack carried. There were enough.
“As the buck lurched forward, I bolted another round in the chamber. Before I could take a second shot, the animal dropped out of sight,” he said.
Greg took up the trail after his nerves settled, and it didn’t take long to find his prize.
“I couldn’t believe the size. To be honest, when I saw that whitetail’s antlers, I thought I’d shot a baby moose!” he said.
Since cell service was nonexistent in that area, he couldn’t call for help. The drag took him two and a half hours, 10 yards between stops to catch his breath. It was pitch black and raining when he finally reached the vehicle.
The buck, estimated to be 9 1/2 years old, was about 20 pounds heavier than the average whitetail in the area. The mainframe 5×5’s one small flyer wasn’t enough to kick it into the BTR’s typical category, so it ranks as a new state record among Perfects with a score of 180 7/8 inches.
— Read Recent Blog! The Giant That Ran Into a Bullet: The 16-pointer missed the 200-inch mark by only 1 6/8 inches.
