Earlier this month, a bowhunter from Kentucky named Austin New killed a giant velvet buck with an antler spread approaching the 200-inch mark. A journey lineman by trade, New tells F&S that he shot the buck in Henry County on a small parcel he has permission to hunt near Shelbyville.
“It’s a well-known region for good genetics,” New says. “There isn’t a massive density of deer there, but they have the right environment and genetics to grow huge if they reach maturity.”
New first located and patterned the buck during the 2025 season. At the time, he was an impressive 10-point with a 150-inch rack, he estimates. “But he was too young,” New says. “I left him alone to see what he’d turn into.”
Then the deer showed up on his camera near a mineral site last July with an explosion of antler growth. “He was a regular, showing up every morning and evening like clockwork,” New recalls. “He was now a main-frame 12 point with a 3-inch kicker and split brow tines.”
A Hidden Honey Hole
The spot where New killed the buck is a 30-acre hayfield flanked by houses on both sides. He says he found it while traveling for work and secured permission to hunt there by taking the landowner a jar of his home-grown honey.
“The terrain dips down in the back so you can’t see the roads,” he says. “It feels totally secluded, even with those residential areas right there. Behind the hayfield, there’s a spring-fed creek with wooded fingers where this buck liked to bed. About 150 yards down the road from the front of the property, there’s a 150- to 200-acre soybean field.”
Three weeks before New killed the deer, a farmer sprayed the nearby bean field with desiccant, causing it to dry out and die in time for harvest. That’s when the buck began daylighting in New’s hidden hayfield, he says, which is planted with orchard grass and red clover.
On August 1, as soon as supplemental feeding opened for the season, New started putting out corn, and the deer stayed in the area. When bow season came in on September 5, he decided that an evening hunt would give him his best shot at early-season success.
“To be honest, I almost didn’t go,” he says. “We had a long stretch of hot weather, the wind was completely stagnant, and the buck hadn’t shown up on camera on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday night But I convinced myself to go anyway.”
Hanging Low
Sitting in a lock-in stand, just 10 feet up a tree, New had a group of does come in at around 7:15 p.m. on the evening of the opener. “They caught a little bit of my scent because the air was so stagnant, but they weren’t spooked,” he says. “Then, around 7:35, a bachelor group of bucks came up the creek. It was so hot they just hung out splashing and drinking in the water until 8:00 o’clock. Eventually, they climbed out, passed just 7 yards from me, and walked into the hayfield.”
With the bachelor group still in the hayfield, New heard more splashing down by the creek. It was the big buck he’d been after. “I peeked through the branches and instantly knew it was him,” he says. “He took a quick drink, walked out, and stopped dead in his tracks to watch the other bucks in the field.”
By now, New’s heart was hammering. At just 7 yards, the buck was so close New was afraid that the movement of his eyelids would spook it. “I was a complete wreck trying to control my breathing, and I couldn’t even think about drawing back,” he says. “He stood there for three or four minutes, taking a couple of steps and then freezing.”
Finally, the deer walked behind a cedar tree, about 16 yards away, giving New the cover he needed to draw his bow. Then it stepped beyond the tree and stopped broadside in the hayfield, 19 yards away.
“The arrow hit mid-body, double-lunged him right behind the front shoulder, and wedged into the opposite shoulder blade,” he recalls. “He bolted and went down hard, just 60 yards away in under three seconds. It was over that fast.”
New says he was shocked by the deer’s mass when he finally got his hands on the 12-point frame. “The trail cam photos just didn’t do him justice,” he says. “I never thought he was quite that big until I saw him up close. I was thinking 170 to 175, which I would have been perfectly happy with.”
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Instead, the 5-year-old buck green-grossed at a whopping 195 when taped out by New, 203 when taped by a close friend, and 199 when measured by his brother. Its main beams measured 26.5-inches long and it had a full 48 inches of mass. New’s net score for the deer came in just under 175. He won’t get the official Pope & Young tally until after the 60-day drying period.
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