This deer season Dale Baer and his buddy Cory Peters were hunting near Portage in a deer-rich region west of Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was cold, but there was no snow on the ground — perfect deer weather, says Baer.
“Cory knew the area, and he and I scouted it about a week before we hunted in mid-November,” Baer tells Outdoor Life. “We finally got three days to hunt, watching hay fields bordering thick Canadian bush.”
Baer hunted the first afternoon with his Savage .300 Winchester Magnum rifle. He was set up near a large hay bale for cover, watching an opening where Peters had seen deer cross before.
“That first afternoon I saw a buck cross the field corner and I didn’t shoot,” says the 60-year-old from Portage, who’s been hunting all his life. “The second afternoon it was too dark for a shot at a buck when it crossed the same area.”
But on the third afternoon of Baer’s hunt, a buck came out 15 minutes before dark.
“He was moving so I grunted to him, and he stopped. I put my crosshairs on him and fired. He was at 285 yards, and I thought I had made a good shot.”
Baer heard his bullet hit, and then he watched as the buck stumbled and fell into thick cover bordering the hay field. He called Peters, and they looked for sign, but the cover was thick and a blood trail wasn’t easy to locate. So, they left the field and returned at 8 a.m. the next day.
“We found the buck lying in the bush in just 15 minutes,” Baer said. “He only went about 20 yards from where I hit him, and the bullet passed through his heart and exited the far side of his chest.”
The pair of hunters loaded the buck into a truck and drove to a farmhouse where they hung and cleaned the estimated 250-pound deer.
“The rack was huge. And there is a fresh mark on it that looks like another hunter shot at it, like the bullet made a groove in its rack,” says Baer. “We knew that the mass and all 17 points were big.”
But Baer didn’t get his deer scored by a Boone and Crockett official until recently, at the ‘Ebb and Flow’ big buck show put on by the Neepawa Wildlife Association.
Bear says that when he walked into the show, however, his heart sank. Never in his life had he seen so many giant bucks in one place. There were massive bucks everywhere — so many that he almost went home. It’s a good thing he didn’t.
“I didn’t think my buck would be [among] the top deer scored, but I won first place in the non-typical division with an official net score of 215 4/8 inches.”
Baer says Boone and Crockett scorer Tyler Lee taped his deer’s rack, and he is having a shoulder mount made. According to a score chart Baer provided OL, the antlers had a gross score of 233 4/8 and a final net score of 215 4/8. In a post about the deer show, the Neepawa Wildlife Association listed Baer’s buck as the top non-typical buck with a score of 194 6/8.
“This past hunting season, it was my turn,” Baer says of his buck of a lifetime. “I even won a brand-new Savage rifle by winning the non-typical deer division. I call my deer the ‘D.C. buck,’ short for Dale and Cory. Without Cory, I never would have been standing by that hay bale when that buck stepped out.”
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