By Gordon Whittington
Any bow-killed whitetail that crowds 190 net inches is truly a world-class trophy, no matter where he’s from. Even in the heart of the Midwest and Canada that’s a stud of a deer. And along the East Coast, such bucks are about as rare as hen’s teeth. (Which, in case you didn’t know, don’t exist.)
But somehow, Scott Borden found such a freak of nature in Monmouth County, New Jersey, back in 1995. The young bowhunter had found some big rubs in his hunting area, and while heading out to hunt one morning had glimpsed an exceptionally high-racked buck in his vehicle headlights. But without trail cameras or other confirmation of the deer’s true size, all that could be said for sure was that a real trophy lurked in the area.
Confirmation of the buck’s size came a little after 8 a.m. on Nov. 17, when Scott ended up grunting the beast to within 23 yards of his tree stand. A Thunderhead-tipped arrow from the archer’s Hoyt compound did its work and put New Jersey onto the trophy whitetail map.
The Borden buck’s 189 4/8-inch net score annihilated that of the former New Jersey bow record. In fact, even today it ranks him as the state’s top typical by any weapon — or even found dead. And get this: At the time, he even outscored the state’s biggest non-typical! It takes quite a deer to do that.
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Scott’s monster was also a contender for the Pope & Young Club’s all-time Top 10 list, which otherwise was filled with bucks from such hotspots as Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Alberta. For a deer from just south of the New York City metropolitan area to rank among the world’s elite is amazing.
Although Scott’s buck got some attention at the time, over the years he’s largely been forgotten outside New Jersey. That’s a shame. While the Garden State has gone on to produce many more fine whitetails, there still hasn’t been a typical to match this one’s lofty score. It’s wise to never say never in the world of trophy whitetails, but beating the beast from Monmouth County definitely will take some doing.
