38 year old Gene Figge was hunting a farm that his family had hunted for most of thirty years. It was the first day of the Illinois shotgun season in Jersey County. “I was up in a climber stand since very early morning, the weather was bad and getting worse. It was in the mid thirties and it was raining and the wind just ate through your clothes and chilled your bones. I saw a small buck about 9:30 but it was too far away to even try a shot. I had had enough and decided to not only get down, but to move my stand to another location,” said Gene.

He had already decided where he was going to move the stand for the evening hunt on the assumption that the bad weather would continue.

As he was packing his gear and getting ready to move to the truck, he heard a shot from the direction where his father was hunting. Instead of heading forthe truck, Gene now headed towards his dad. When he arrived a few minutes later he found that his father had killed a nice sized doe and it was down in the bottom. When they were getting ready to move the deer from where it had dropped, Gene noticed several very fresh rubs along a trail. “I decided right then that I would hang my stand right there, just below the ridge above and hunt there that evening. I picked a tree and left my stand and some gear and we began to drag dad’s doe towards the truck,” Gene related.

So the two men dragged the doe to the truck and headed for the house to hang the deer
and get some lunch. Dry cloths and a better mood sent Gene back to the woods for the
afternoon hunt.

During the time they were out of the woods the weather moderated quite a bit and
looked like it would be a pleasant afternoon for hunting. “I got into the stand around 2:30 and settled in for the afternoon, warmer and certainly dryer than the morning. I didn’t see anything, not even a squirrel for most of the afternoon. There was about 45 minutes of daylight left when I heard a deer blow. I could see nothing, but the blowing continued. I thought that maybe someone or something had busted a deer and it was moving away from the disturbance,” Gene spoke, excited now.

they kept on moving, almost directly under my stand. I hollered ‘Stop’ and maybe a fewother choice words, but they kept on truckin’, I never had a clean shot,” Gene was
wound up now as he told his story.

As they disappeared over the next ridge, Gene sat down and tried to regain his wits.
His breath was ragged and he was starting to shake as the adrenaline flowed through his
body. “Man that was a nice buck, and I never had a shot, I couldn’t believe how quickly
it had all happened, maybe only 2 or 3 minutes total,” Gene was incredulous as he retold
the tale.

“All of a sudden, I heard more brush crackling,” Gene spoke. “It was coming from the
exact area where the other two had just recently appeared. I zeroed in on the same spot
where the doe had crossed over and got ready. I saw antler tips, then they grew taller, and taller, and I still didn’t see a head. It was one heck of a buck and when it finally broke over the top of the ridge, it was on the same track as the other two. I just knew it would follow the same path and at the speed it was moving, I wouldn’t get a clean shot at this one either.”

Gene related, “This guy was grunting with every step and he was undoubtedly on the
trail of a hot doe. He was moving fast, way to fast for a clean shot and he was past me in
a few seconds. I swung around in the stand and as the buck headed up the big ridge, I led
him a few feet and pulled the trigger. I didn’t think I hit him, but he stopped for just the
few seconds that I needed to chamber another round, get a good sight and pull the trigger once more. The buck bolted and changed directions and was out of sight within seconds. I could hear him moving away, he was making a lot of noise crashing through the brush in a headlong dash to escape. Suddenly, there was a very loud crash, then I thought I could hear something sliding down the side of the hill. Then silence.”

 “About 3 steps farther on I found more blood and even a piece of rib bone. That did it
for me, I was sure he was down somewhere and I just needed to find him before dark.
And it was getting dark real fast now. I hollered for my dad and told him I had hit a really big buck so he came running to me. I told him again that I had surely killed a really big buck. I don’t think he believed me, so I said it again, still there was that look, ‘OK, we’ll see’,” says Gene.

“So we take out following the blood and where I knew it had gone from the sounds I
heard after it cleared the ridge top. Dad was looking at the blood and I was scanning the
woods, looking for a white belly or tail or an antler. There it was, about fifty yards from
the shot. I said there it is dad, it is a big deer,” Gene stated matter-of-fact.

Dad took one quick look and then stated, “That’s not a big deer, that is ‘Great Big
Deer.’” They did the high fives and then checked this boy out.

“It had at least twenty points and a very high rack. We had never seen anything like it
in all our years of hunting. Then we began to evaluate what it was going to take to get the deer out of the woods. Where it was laying was almost straight up to the ridge where we could crossover, there was no way we were going to drag it back up, so we decided we would move it down to the bottom, get the four wheeler and go up a less steep trail and out,” Gene told me.

A couple hours later, they got the deer to a check station and got the paperwork taken
care of. A person at the check station aged the buck at about 7 and a half years and
guessed the weight at about 200 pounds live weight. That late at night, there weren’t to
many people at the check station, but the word soon spread and the next day there were
plenty of people wanting a look so there was quite a bit of traffic the next day.

The buck was loaded up with ticks, more than either father or son could ever remember
on a deer. Later Gene took the deer to a taxidermist and while caping the deer, the
taxidermist found a two inch long antler tip, broken off and imbedded in the front of the
eye socket. The eye was intact and appeared functional, but there was an infection
starting to form in the sinus area.

 As an aside, the landowner, died about a month after the season closed. The land was sold and the new owners will not allow the Figges to hunt there any longer. Gene said in closing, “It was one of those hunts where everything went exactly like it had been written in a script for a high action TV show. I told my dad, that if I hunted for the rest of my life, I might never see such an incredible deer let alone get a shot at one of its size and
character.”

Details? The buck is a main frame 5 X 5 with 8 extra scoreable points. It was measured in late summer of 2007 by Buckmasters. The official BTR score is 180 4/8
inches and a composite of 199 1/8 inches.