Roger Pankey had been after the buck for 2 months straight when it lastly daylighted for him in early December
Roger Pankey with the 18-point buck he nicknamed “Bullwinkle.” Photograph courtesy Roger Pankey
Retired Michigan Division of Pure Sources worker Roger Pankey has spent a lifetime searching whitetails in his dwelling state. He primarily hunts fringe farmland habitat in southwest Michigan, the place he owns a 100-acre parcel in Cass County. And over the previous two years, he’s had his eye on a particular buck there.
Pankey first caught the buck on path digital camera in 2021, and in 2022, he discovered its sheds on his property. By the 2023 deer season, the buck had grown right into a wide-racked monster with huge most important beams, and the nickname “Bullwinkle” was born.
“Bullwinkle was hanging out rather a lot on neighbors’ land, they usually have been searching him, too,” Pankey tells Outside Life. “However the deer began displaying at evening usually on my property [in October], and that’s once I actually devoted the 2023 deer season to getting him.”
Retirement allowed Pankey to hunt for his goal buck almost each day between Oct. 1 and early December. After putting out by archery and rifle season, Pankey switched to a rifle chambered in .450 Bushmaster to make the most of the state’s 10-day muzzleloader season that began Dec. 1. (The rifle is classed as a short-range firearm in Michigan and due to this fact authorized throughout the particular season.) On Dec. 5, Bullwinkle lastly confirmed.
“I had a path digital camera picture of Bullwinkle the evening earlier than I shot him,” Pankey says. “My grandson Hint and I hunted that subsequent afternoon, moving into two totally different elevated field blinds about 3 p.m. We have been about 100 yards aside, close to the place we had evening images of [the buck].”
Later that afternoon, Pankey had a number of does stroll right into a meals plot to feed. Quickly after, he noticed Bullwinkle from about 120 yards away. It was the primary time he’d seen the deer throughout the daytime.
“I needed to calm myself, as a result of I knew how large he was,” Pankey says. “He was strolling straight towards me, and I couldn’t get a great shot on him for some time. When he quartered only a bit, I took a shot.”
The buck ran about 80 yards to the place Pankey watched it fall.
Pankey says Bullwinkle was lean from the rut, with an estimated dressed weight round 175 kilos. One in every of his associates green-scored the 18-point rack at 192 1/8 inches, and Pankey believes the buck will make the Boone and Crockett book no matter whether or not it’s scored as a typical or a non-typical. He’ll know for certain after the 60-day drying interval is up.
“I’ve deer hunted all my life, and this buck is by far the most effective one I’ve ever taken,” Pankey says. “And I’ve received 30 buck mounts from the deer I’ve been lucky sufficient to take through the years.”
