Indiana Hunter Arrows Massive 209-Inch Non-Typical Buck in October

• Hunter: Branden Atterson
• Buck: 209 2/8” (unofficial gross non-typical)
• Date of Harvest: Oct. 26, 2025
• Location of Harvest: Indiana
• Weapon of Harvest: TenPoint Crossbow

The morning of October 26, 2025 started out extremely slow for Indiana’s Branden Atterson as he only witnessed a single doe. Atterson hunted until about 11 a.m. and then headed home to eat some lunch and rest a bit before the evening sit. He got up around 2:45 and contemplated taking the evening session off. But, he thought otherwise and went anyway. This would prove to be a very wise decision.

Branden thought he might switch up locations as he was getting trail camera images of another buck that he’d decided was a shooter around the area of this secondary stand location. He then decided to stick to the original stand that he’d sat earlier.

Atterson’s west-central Indiana hunting land is unique in that the primary habitat is a fairly long draw of brush, shrubs, secondary growth, row-planted trees, and grasses that is approximately 150 yards wide and stretches on for about a half mile. Within the draw — which runs north to south — are a few precious actual mature trees in which to make finding a tree big enough to hang a stand very difficult.

“We typically do not hold a lot of big deer year-round; it's mainly a funnel for all these deer to run through and feel safe because there's so much bedding and places to hide with how thick it is in the draw," Atterson explained. "Where I sit is about 40 yards in from the bottom field and about 80 from the top field. I can see all the way to the top and behind me to the bottom. I cleared out a bunch of the thick weeds and thorns to make about a 20-yard radius of open area.”

Although the area doesn’t seem to hold many mature bucks during the offseason, sightings of them tend to pick up after velvet removal. In fact, back on the 9th of October at 1:14 in the morning, a mystery buck of sorts presented himself on camera. Unfortunately, all Branden could make out from the image were the brow tines and the left side of his rack. With such limited visual evidence, Atterson couldn’t really tell how big the buck actually was.

He got to his hunting area around 3:15 p.m. The wind was blowing from the east, so he quietly approached the set-up from downwind toward the bottom of the draw.

“Normally all the deer walk in front of me, so I knew my wind was good for anything that was going to step out," he said. "The hunt started out very slow; I had only seen one doe before him and a handful of squirrels.

Atterson then decided to get a little aggressive.

“I was getting a little bored sitting up in the stand so I waited until the wind calmed down to grunt a few times just to see if I could get something to wander in," Atterson remembered. "It was around 5:30, or so I grunted and didn't get any response from that, so I went back to fiddling with my bow hanger and trying to find a snack in my deer bag."

Branden kept hearing something to his left moving in the dry leaves. His first thought was that it was most likely a squirrel, but he decided to try another grunting sequence. He then sat back and waited. A bit later he turned to look behind him in the bean stubble to see if any deer were feeding and when he turned back around he caught movement.

“My heart instantly sank, but then probably shot up to 180 beats per minute! He was standing directly in front of me about 25-30 yards," Atterson said. "I didn't even have my crossbow ready. It was still on the bow hanger. So, I'm thinking to myself ‘how the heck am I going to pull this off when he is standing 25 yards in front of me?’. Luckily there are about a dozen or so small trees in front of me. As soon as he put his head down and walked behind one, I hurried up and grabbed my crossbow and mounted it to my shoulder holding it as tight as possible.”

At this point Atterson was shaking uncontrollably. He then took a couple deep breaths to try and calm himself down. The giant then started walking to his right to a part of the open area he’d prepped earlier. Luckily the big buck did stop in the opening and Branden instinctively put the dot on the sweet spot and loosed a bolt.

“I heard the arrow hit him and saw him take off to my right then instantly took a sharp turn and ran back to where he came from," Atterson recalled. "After the shot I put my crossbow back on the bow hanger and called my father, Todd, telling him I had just shot what I thought was my target buck, barely able to keep a sentence together with how excited I was. I made another phone call to my girlfriend, Madison, and couldn't even form a sentence at that point."

It appears that Atterson was suffering from the post-shooting-the-biggest-buck-of-your-life uncontrollable shakes!

Todd arrived a bit later and after a slight initial blood trail caused some consternation, Todd ended up finding the buck not far from where Branden stood at the last miniscule blood spot. The brute had made it roughly 80 yards from the tree stand. They later weighed the buck prior to field dressing and it tipped the scales at 274 pounds. A preliminary rough score puts the buck at 209 2/8” gross non-typical.

“The overall hunt is something that I will never ever forget and a memory I will keep for a lifetime," Atterson said. "I couldn't ask for a better hunt and outcome. This buck is a once-in-a-lifetime animal and I could not be more thankful for being able to harvest an animal of that caliber.”