Marvel at the Largest Whitetail Deer Ever Harvested in Maine

With 3,500 miles of coastline, Maine evokes images of lobsters and scenic ocean drives and trips to Mount Desert Island to tour Acadia National Park. What is, perhaps, rarely conjured in the imagination when thinking of the Pine Tree State is hunting big game. It ought to be, however. The state, according to its Inland Fisheries and Wildlife department, has “one of the biggest moose and black bear populations in the ‘Lower 48,'” and many people go there to hunt those animals as well as the whitetail deer.

The state is a literal 17-million-acre forested playground for hunters, and about 320,000 whitetail deer call Maine home. Most of them are situated in the central and southern parts of the state. Hunting is a favorite pastime in Maine, and bagging a record whitetail deer might just be a reason to visit.

The Boone and Crocket Club was established by Theodore Roosevelt and others in 1887 to prevent wildlife from being hunted to extinction. The club also sets guidelines for trophy hunting records for big game animals like whitetail deer. When it comes to determining what garners a trophy, the focus is not on the body size or weight of the animal but rather on its antler size and complexity through a scoring system. There are typical and non-typical whitetail deer records.

Scores are determined by counting the number of points on the antlers and then measuring the width of the main beam spread of the antlers from tip to tip, the inside spread, the length of the main beam, the length of the points, and the circumference between points. These measurements are then calculated according to a formula provided by the Boone and Crocket Club. A score above 170 is considered an all-timer in the typical category and above 195 in the non-typical.

According to the Boone and Crocket Club, Ronnie Cox bagged the typical record for the largest whitetail deer harvested in Maine’s history during a 1965 hunt. His trophy bucked scored an impressive 193-2/8. For comparison, the score for the world record for whitetail deer in the typical category is 213-5/8.

Fifty-five years previous, a registered Maine guide and hunter Hill Gould shot a non-typical whitetail deer that would go down in history. During a 1910 hunt along Little River in northeast Maine, Gould came upon a deer for the ages. While perched beside the river after a long day of waiting, he noticed a whitetail buck appear from behind a grove of alder trees. It was so large, he almost thought it was a ghost. His hunting instincts kicked in, however, and he felled the massive buck with one shot.

Sensing this buck to be something special, he quickly sold the antlers to a nearby hunting camp owner for $50 ($1,570 today). From there, the antlers passed through more than a dozen hands over the next century. Word spread pretty quickly about the deer’s impressive and usual rack, but it didn’t enter the Boone and Crockett record books officially until 1994. Once authorized, the score of 259 easily became the record holder for non-typical whitetail deer harvested in Maine, bumping to No. 2 the previous score of 248-1/8 set in 1945, although it’s quite a bit “smaller” than the world record—333-7/8—which was picked up in 1981 in St. Louis County, Missouri.

It’s unlikely any Maine whitetail deer will beat Gould’s state record anytime soon since it’s stood for 115 years and counting.