Tom Miller

The Tom Miller BuckAfter retiring from the Ford Motor Company, Tom Miller enjoyed taking full advantage of the prime hunting on his homestead in Kankakee County, Illinois. A passionate outdoorsman, Miller takes a lot of pride working and tending the land specifically for wildlife. His hard work has paid off with a healthy and hearty deer herd and abundant wildlife that Tom enjoys watching year round.

If Tom is not hunting or working on his land to make it better for the wildlife that lives there, you will find him out for a ride on one of his Harley’s.

Tom enjoys hunting anything that tastes good (he considers himself a meat hunter). He’s had the good fortune of harvesting numerous big bucks on the property, but none like the one he took on November 10, 2002.

Miller knew from the sign he was seeing that there were some good bucks using the property, but he wasn’t expecting to see such a large buck that cold morning. The big buck totally surprised Miller. When it silently stepped out in front of his stand about 15 yards away, Tom didn’t even have an arrow nocked! The monster was just slowly walking away from him, and by the time he quietly got an arrow loaded and nocked, he had to wait for a clear shot. By now, the buck was almost 40 yards away. Finally…a clear shot, at 40 yards!

Miller usually wouldn’t have taken such a long shot on a deer, but he’d been doing some long-distance shooting in preparation for an antelope hunt. He had set a 40-yard-pin on his sight and felt good about taking the shot. However, just as he released the arrow, the buck took a step. He knew the buck was hard hit, but the Muzzy broadhead hit the buck just a little far back. So being an experienced Bowhunter Miller returned to his house and waited two hours to give the buck some time before starting the tracking job that lay ahead. He knew the worst thing he could do now was to pressure the buck.

While he waited, he called friends and family to help locate the deer. The determined hunter and his posy slowly tracked the big buck that was not leaving much in the way sign. The longer they tracked the deer, the closer they got to Miller’s house. Tom and his brother finely found the monster main-frame 12-point only 90 yards from his back door. His Muzzy 3-blade, 125-grain broadhead had done it’s job! The buck had traveled about 300 yards before bedding down.

The massive buck had 22 scorable points. The rack grossed 219 4/8” inches and net scored 212” inches. His inside spread measured 22 6/8”. He had 33 inches of non-typical mass and his bases measured 6 2/8”. Do the math…this monster non-typical has only 6 inches of deductions. The rack has everything a hunter wants in a whitetail rack…drop tines, bladed tines, stickers, and lots of mass!

The harvest of this monster buck has not changed Tom Miller. His is still a quiet, private man who loves to hunt. The only difference is that Tom Miller experienced a really special day in the woods on November 10th, 2002, and is now a member of the Muzzy 200 Club.