Maryland Monster Joins NRA’s Whitetail Collection

Justin McDaniel over at NRAHuntersRights.org brings us the following:

In 2006, while hunting on private farmland near his home in southern Charles County, Md., Bill Crutchfield, Jr., killed a non-typical whitetail buck that he and his friends thought might rival the Maryland state record.

As it turns out, the previous record—a more-than-respectable 228 4/8-inch non-typical buck taken in Montgomery County by Jack Poole in 1987—never stood a chance against the bruiser Crutchfield bagged on the third day of Maryland’s modern firearms season that year. The Crutchfield buck, with its 28 scorable points, was certified at 268 1/8 inches by Boone and Crockett, making it the largest buck ever killed in Maryland—and the entire East Coast, for that matter.

After watching the bedded buck from his ladder stand not far from the Potomac River for more than an hour, another nice buck cruised past Crutchfield’s stand, sending the monster from his bed and Crutchfield into the record books.

“At 3:45 I looked past the bedded monster and shivered,” Crutchfield said in the Oct. 2008 issue of American Hunter magazine. “A large, white rack moved from left to right through the marsh. I put my scope on the deer—a 20-inch-plus 8-pointer with tall G-2s. A shooter any day but today.

“I focused back on the big buck. He was still bedded, but something told me to get ready. Suddenly the giant stood up. He was severely quartering away, looking into the patch of 6-foot-tall marsh grass in front of him, wanting to go where the 8-point had gone. I knew that if he got into the thick grass he’d be gone.

“I placed the crosshairs of the scope on the back of the buck’s rib cage, took a deep breath, said a little prayer and squeezed the trigger.”

The buck sped off through the marsh, but the slug from Crutchfield’s Remington 870 had found its mark, and he soon found his trophy only 75 yards from where it had stood.

“Shooting a buck like that changes your life, makes you want to give something back to the outdoors,” Crutchfield said.

And give back he will. Crutchfield is slated to present a replica of his record-book buck to the NRA Hunter Services Department later this month at the Kids Hunting for a Cure event at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds in Fayetteville, Tenn. The event is being held Oct. 24-26 in conjunction with the Tennessee Youth Whitetail Deer Season.

Crutchfield, a firefighter by trade, has volunteered to become executive director of Kids Hunting for a Cure, a non-profit organization that offers financial support to research hospitals and foundations dedicated to finding a cure for cancer and other childhood diseases.

The Crutchfield titan will become a part of NRA’s Great American Whitetail Collection, a set of nearly 50 replica mounts from some of the most well-known, highest scoring whitetails ever harvested or found in North America. Other bucks in the collection include the legendary “Hole in the Horn” buck and Boone & Crockett’s No. 1 typical of all-time, the 213 6/8-inch Milo Hanson buck.

The Great American Whitetail Collection is made available to the public each year at numerous hunting and outdoors shows across the country through the NRA Great American Hunters Tour. Twelve heads from the collection are chosen for showing at each stop on the tour.

The Kids Hunting for a Cure event will be the tour’s last stop for 2008. The dates and locations of the 2009 Great American Hunters Tour will be made available later this year at www.nrahq.org/hunting/greatamerican.asp.

With a little luck, the new Maryland non-typical record might be headed to a hunting show in your neck of the woods sometime soon.