This was the first year Jacob Combs of Port St. Joe, Florida, hunted his new 400-acre lease of a pine-tree farm in Calhoun County. He knew there were deer on the property, but it wasn’t until September that he started getting trail cam photos of a buck that immediately caught his attention.
“I knew he was on the property for two months,” Combs tells Outdoor Life. “I got trail camera photos of him almost every night.”
Combs, 32, said he hunted the buck almost daily since Halloween, which was the first time the buck started daylighting.
“I wasn’t on stand during Halloween because I was with my family,” says Combs, who co-owns the Cape San Blas Pontoon Rental with his wife, Jessi. “I was at a party when I got phone trail cam photos of the buck just 30 yards from my stand during daylight. I was pretty upset about not being there when he showed up.”
The buck usually traveled between his bedding area in young pines to adjacent peanut fields to feed during late afternoons and evenings.
On Nov. 16, the buck made the mistake of walking that same trail while Combs was hunting. It was Combs’ 23rd time hunting that buck, and it was the biggest Florida whitetail he’d ever seen on that hoof.
“That late afternoon, I first saw a doe with fawns and a spike,” Combs said. “I had a deer feeder out. But the buck would never go close to it, though the other deer would. They’d stop for a while, take a bite from the feeder, then move along.”
At 5 p.m., the big buck finally appeared near Combs’ ladder stand.
“It was still pretty early, so I was watching the Gators game on my phone,” says Combs. “I looked up, and there he was at 50 yards. It took him two minutes to get to bow range. I never looked at his rack again because I thought I’d get the shakes.”
Finally, the buck walked close enough, but now he was facing Combs head-on, without presenting a shot.
“The spike buck was there, and the big buck turned to chase the spike away,” Combs recalls. “That’s when he turned broadside at 31 yards, and I raised my crossbow and shot.”
The buck whirled and ran out the same trail he came in on.
“I felt good about the shot, and I thought I heard him fall. But there were other deer around running away, too, so I couldn’t be sure about him crashing.”
He called his wife, Jessi, as he climbed down from his stand. He located his bloody arrow, which also had fat on it. After phoning some friends and relatives for advice, he decided to back out.
Combs returned to camp and waited three hours. Then, his grandfather, Warren Yeager, and his dad, Robert Combs, joined him to look for the buck.
“It was full dark, but we got on the trail using flashlights,” Combs said. “The blood got better and better as we followed it. His trail turned into some woods, and we found him about 30 yards inside the timber. He’d been dead a long time because he was very stiff. I don’t think he lived long.”
They loaded the buck and headed back to camp, where friends and family were waiting to see it.
“It was like a tailgate party,” Combs says.
The 16-point buck weighed almost 216 pounds before field dressing. Combs contacted officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, and one of them later green-scored the buck’s rack at 187 2/8 inches gross, with a net score of 180 5/8s inches.
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“I’m having a pedestal mount made, and we’ll display him in our deer camp when it gets back from the taxidermist,” Combs says. “The state official said that it missed being the Calhoun County record deer by less than one inch.
“I am beyond blessed for getting this buck and for the help and support from my friends and family.”
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