Oklahoma's Justin Nicholas first saw this giant buck in 2023, but it was on a nearby property that he didn't have access to. Fortunately for him, the 2024 season played out just as he was hoping!
February 05, 2025
By Clifford Neames
Knowing where a big buck stays is great, but being unable to get to it is not. Justin Nicholas first spotted his big Oklahoma mainframe 10-point on a property he couldn't hunt in December of 2023. The buck caught his attention that day, but the only thing he could do was hope it came over to the nearby acreage he hunts.
“I hung a lock-on in a good spot there and put in a cell camera,” Justin said. “And the next season there he was!”
It doesn’t get much better than that.
By October 2024, the giant buck was in there so much that Justin had a hard time getting back to his stand. He only managed three trips in to hunt, limiting his time to mornings only. On the first occasion, his cameras revealed that he had bumped the deer. On the next hunt, the deer was under his stand just before shooting light.
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He was close, but the oversized buck was winning the match!
As Halloween rolled around, Justin’s cameras were blowing up.
“I knew it was time to try again,” he remembered. “I decided to sit on a ridge covered with pin oaks between two fields.”
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The afternoon of November 1st was going as planned when a buck named "Brownie" showed up to dine on the acorns.
“Brownie has great brow tines, but short points,” Justin explained. “A good deer, but not the one I was after. Then he picked his head up and pinned his ears back!”
His target buck was coming!
The monster 10-point was posturing aggressively as he closed in to claim his turf. Justin, already shaking, whistled to stop him and released the arrow from his bow at just 17 yards. His aim was true, and the huge whitetail crashed to the ground in 10 yards.
“I watched him tip over right there,” he recalled. “Then the shaking got even worse!”
The rack isn’t extraordinarily wide at 16 ½ inches, but the 13-inch G2s and G3s — in combination with very long beams — make for a very impressive frame. With nearly 35 inches of mass, they run the tape up to a nice 175 inches.
Another Sooner State dandy down!