James Sherman was hunting during Virginia’s rifle season when he had the kind of surprise whitetail encounter we all wish for. “I spotted a buck under some power lines that run through our property, and while he was a long distance way, I didn’t even need to glass him to know he was huge,” Sherman told F&S. “I couldn’t wait to tell my dad—who everyone calls Jimmy—that we had a buck on our land we didn’t know, and that he was a monster—the kind of buck deer hunters dream about.”
After five days of hunting without another encounter with the big deer, it was time for James to return to work, but the elder Sherman continued to press hard, sitting most of the day during legal hunting hours. His efforts were rewarded when a nice typical walked to within 40 yard—but Jimmy missed the shot. “Of course, he was disappointed, but if anything he hunted even harder in the wake of that miss,” James said. “He was determined to see that really big one I’d spotted. When I came back to resume my hunt, I was able to take a beautiful 8-point that was one of the nicest bucks I’ve killed. Dad was as excited for me as he always was, even calling me from the stand when I sent him pics of the buck.”
James was still soaking up his success when he got another phone call from his dad. “I didn’t even see his first couple attempts to call me, and when I finally saw the missed calls, I rang him right back and he said ‘You have to see the buck I just shot!’ A doe had run out in front of dad’s stand at 9 a.m. and right behind her was the biggest buck he had ever seen. Dad managed to get the gun up and pull the trigger, and the buck ran only 15 yards before tipping over. All of his hard work and hours in the stand had paid off!”
The Jimmy Sherman buck is a special one indeed. With 15 scorable points, the buck has a gross green score of 211 inches B&C and could rank in the top 20 nontypicals in Virginia history. The top spot in that category for the Commonwealth is a 257-4/8-inch whopper killed by James Smith in 1992. “This is the largest buck ever taken by someone in our family, and it means a lot to both of us,” James said. “Deer hunting is a shared passion and something we look forward to every fall.”
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