Brett Nauerth had three years’ worth of photos of a great Missouri buck. Most pictures during that time were at night, and he never saw the deer in the flesh until this October.
“I had three encounters with him in three weeks, but he just slipped away every time,” Nauerth tells Outdoor Life. “I nicknamed him ‘Texas Red’, after the outlaw in the old Marty Robbins song ‘Texas Iron’. He was tough, just like that outlaw in the song.”
Nauerth says the buck usually stayed on a neighbor’s land during autumn – until this year.
“They started building a house in the area he was usually using,” says the 23-year-old electrician from Higbee, Missouri. “I think that building work pushed the buck my way onto the 240-acres of family land I was hunting.”
That property is mostly rolling timber with some hay fields. Nauerth hunted from a hang-on tree stand 15 feet off the ground, using climbing sticks to access it. He’d lost a bit of confidence after the missed opportunities in October, when he tried unsuccessfully to rattle and grunt Texas Red into bow range.
By Nov. 10, Nauerth wasn’t even getting photos of the buck. But he had a weird feeling that he needed to get into his tree stand that afternoon.
“The temperature was in the 30s, and I felt like I should be hunting,” he says. “So, I left work at 2 p.m. and got into my stand by about 3 p.m.”
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At 5:40 p.m. he spotted a big buck 300 yards distant. He used his rattling horns just as there was a break in the wind.
“I looked at the buck through my binoculars and he’d come closer, to 200 yards. I knew then for sure it was Texas Red.”
The young archer watched the buck slowly walking toward him, trying to stay calm and ready when the deer got into bow range.
“He was really lean, and kind of hurting,” Nauerth says. “I’m sure he’d been fighting other bucks and looked pretty whipped.”
Slowly, Texas Red got within 30 yards, where he stepped behind a big shagbark hickory.
“I was looking for him to step into a small hole in the brush so I could shoot,” he says. “He moved to the hole opening, I stopped him with a grunt, and I shot.”
Nauerth says he was so excited he had a little archery target panic when he released his arrow from his 60-pound compound bow. The arrow hit the buck high and a bit back. He even thought for a moment that he may have gut shot the buck. But he saw a lot of blood at the spot where Texas Red was standing when his broadhead hit the whitetail.
He left the woods, returning two hours later when it was full dark with a few friends and neighbors. The blood trail was easy to follow for a time, then it got spotty, and the crew of hunters spread out, moving slowly with flashlights looking for sign.
They found buck about 200 yards from where Nauerth’s arrow hit it.
“He was stiff, and had been dead quite awhile,” he says. “I was lucky and my broadhead cut the big artery under the backbone, so he bled out fast.”
Nauerth says Texas Red was a fighter. The 17-point, 5.5-year-old deer broke off his brow tines and some kicker points, losing about 12 inches of antlers and bringing the green score to 180 inches.
“For the first time I’m not worried about opening day of this year’s gun deer season,” says Nauerth when asked if he’ll hunt any more this year. “I’ve got some photos of some good bucks on our place, and I’ll hunt them. But right now, I’m just going to enjoy finally having Texas Red.”
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