Years of nighttime trail-camera photos kept Wayne Roberts focused on this giant Florida buck that rarely showed himself in daylight.
November 29, 2025
By Clifford Neames
“I’ve seen plenty of deer, but never anything close to this one,” Wayne Roberts said, describing the giant Florida buck he took September 14th, 2025. “In our area, a 140-inch deer would be a great trophy, so this one was just off the chart!”
Wayne had worked hard to keep the big buck on his property over the last three years. Over that time, it had continued to appear at night.
“I knew he was bedding somewhere else, and at least a dozen other people had cell cam pics,” he said. “So, I poured on the food once I knew where he spent most of his time on my place.”
The oversized whitetail seemed to frequent one corner of the 200-acre property, but he was completely nocturnal early on. Other than the dozens of nighttime images, Wayne had no proof the deer was around until he dropped his sheds in a food plot this past spring. All that bone was impressive, so Wayne decided to sweeten the pot a little more.
Roberts poses with his massive 181 3/8-inch Florida buck — a once-in-a-lifetime whitetail in the Sunshine State. “Two weeks before the bow season opened, I put in another two acres of Iron Clay Peas just down the hill from my stand,” Wayne explained. “I also cut new lanes to my stand and tied down the fence to make an easy crossing.”
All the work paid off three days later when the buck finally began daylighting, and for over two weeks he was there every morning.
“I was fired up about my chances on opening day, but was so exhausted that I forgot to set the alarm and missed getting out there the first morning,” Wayne said. “I was very disappointed when I woke up, but then my cell cam pics showed that the buck was in front of the stand at the same time that I would have been walking in, so I would have spooked him.”
After that lucky break, Wayne decided to change his cell camera settings. He made the switch to instant in order to receive intel in real time, and planned his hunt for the next day.
Roberts watched his rare Florida trophy on cell camera for three years. He and his son walked in an hour before daylight the following morning, and Wayne climbed up to the seat of his Millennium ladder stand. Just as the sky began to lighten up, he spotted four does easing up the lane. Then he saw another deer which veered into the woods. At 40 yards, he saw enough of the rack to easily know which deer it was.
“This is it,” he thought.
Years of planning and waiting were about to pay off. However, the buck turned and walked out of sight over the hill — not at all what Wayne was expecting. The next five minutes were tense as he sat there questioning what had happened. Then the big buck showed up on the other side of the fence.
“He was lip curling as he walked in,” Wayne recalled. “The does left, but he kept coming and I let the bolt fly when he reached 25 yards.”
Well-placed food plots and strategic access routes helped coax the big deer into a consistent morning pattern. The giant deer dropped when the broadhead hit, then made it to his feet again as Wayne launched another one. This time he stumbled a few feet and went down for good.
Wayne’s son, Trey, called saying, “You got him!”
Incredibly, he had caught the action on the cell camera.
The 7 1/2-year-old buck has a unique 12 x 6 rack, which tallies 181 3/8 inches — a true lifetime trophy in the Sunshine State!
