Reading about a 200-plus-inch whitetail is always fun, but it’s not often that the story behind the deer makes you sit down and really think to yourself, Wow, what are the odds of that happening? Well, the story behind the huge Trempealeau County buck that John Filla of Independence shot on opening day of Wisconsin’s 2006 gun season might make you think just that.

John’s group planned to do some deer drives shortly after first light on opening morning. John was joined by his 11-year-old son, Kyle, brothers Tony, Ben and Richard, and Ben’s three sons -- Joe, Tim and Andy. The 2006 opening day hunt would be just a little more special for John than usual. That’s because it was Kyle’s first real deer hunting experience. John and the rest of the group planned to teach Kyle how they conduct their deer drives, so that he would be prepared the following year, when he would be old enough to hunt himself.

John was chosen to be one of the “drivers” that morning, and he walked across a hill to the highest spot on the far side of the woods. This spot had been his starting point for the group’s deer drives over the last five years.

Shortly after daylight, John heard a noise in the woods. He turned to see a doe come running out of the woods and into the field. His initial thought was to let her go, since she was heading toward some of the “standers.”

But then John spotted a buck come out behind her. He knew the deer was a buck, but because of the background of the woods behind the deer’s antlers, he couldn’t tell exactly how big the buck was. However, after the buck got farther into the field, he could tell it was a big one.

“I tried to stay as still as possible so he wouldn’t turn back,” John recalled. “He was on her trail, and when he got halfway to the woods, I got off four shots at him with my Remington 1187 Special Purpose Deer 12 gauge. When I saw him run into the woods, my heart was racing, but then I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

A BIZARRE RECOVERY
There was no indication that the buck was hit, but when John reloaded and ran down to the spot where the buck had gone into the woods, he found plenty of blood. After getting together with some of the others and discussing things as a group, the hunters decided to put Andy on the blood trail while John paralleled him out in the open at the top of a ridge. The other hunters repositioned themselves so they could follow the blood trail and conduct a drive at the same time.

They had just gotten started when the doe got up and ran across a finger of woods where Kyle was. Not knowing it was the doe, Andy ran down to the edge of the woods to see if it was the big buck. It wasn’t. Andy went back to take up the blood trail and began following it. Suddenly, he came upon the buck, bedded down right at the edge of the woods.

As the buck took off, Andy got off two shots and John got off one. They each got a better look at the buck and now realized that he was a giant.

“Andy and I were both yelling to the standers, who were about 150 yards in front of us down in the flats,” John recalled.

Tony was in a spot where he could see several of the typical escape routes the deer usually took. Suddenly he spotted the buck running. Tony watched in amazement as the deer jumped off a rock cliff that dropped down to a road about 20 feet below! The big buck’s feet landed just off the shoulder of the road while his chin smacked onto the asphalt!

Appearing to be in daze, the buck got up and ran around for a few seconds. When John reached the scene, the buck was lying with its head on the ground in some marsh grass about 60 yards off the road. John circled about 100 yards around him and put a slug into the buck’s vitals. The hunt was over.

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