Even before the 2019-2020 Alabama gun season opened on Nov. 23, some remarkable bucks already had state deer hunters abuzz. A new No. 1 crossbow buck, a new No. 2 muzzleloader buck, the largest muzzleloader buck ever taken in Crenshaw County, and a possible record-book buck taken by an 11-year-old girl were just some of the big bucks that had Alabama deer hunters talking.
The buck that Ross Lowry, of Summerville, Ga., took in Cherokee County on the first morning of the special muzzleloader season has been certified as the new No. 2 Alabama muzzleloader buck in both the Alabama Whitetail Records book and Buckmasters.
The buck scored 187 2/8 non-typical in AWR and had the same score irregular in Buckmasters.
Ross Lowry’s Cherokee County buck scored 187 2/8 and is Alabama’s new No. 2 muzzleloader buck, according to Alabama Whitetail Records and Buckmasters.
Ross told AON he was hunting a friend’s land just across the Alabama state line and looking for the buck that had been seen on game cameras for three years. He actually shot the deer with a rifle in the shoulder the first week of January last year, but the buck escaped and survived.
On Nov. 18, after three straight days of capturing the buck on a game camera during the day, Ross finally got him with a 75-yard shot with his smokepole.
Travis Lee, of Brantley, also killed his record-book buck during the special muzzleloader season, getting his buck on Nov. 20. It scored 154 7/8. It has been confirmed as the largest muzzleloader buck ever taken in Crenshaw County in south Alabama. It is also in the Top-10 muzzleloader bucks of all time in Alabama.
Travis told AON he saw the buck on trail camera last year and saw it live twice during bow season, but he could never get a shot. He finally saw the buck again several mornings into the special muzzleloader season. At 6:15 a.m., he saw the buck 95 yards away and took his shot.
Travis Lee’s buck is the top muzzleloader buck ever recorded from Crenshaw County.
He said when the smoke cleared, the buck was nowhere to be seen. He and a friend blood-trailed the buck and eventually found it standing in a creek, but it bolted into a thick cutover. The blood trail soon disappeared, and Travis said he feared the buck might be lost forever. He called in tracking dogs from Bonifay, Fla., and those dogs found the buck the next day 200 yards from where it had last been seen.
Raegan Dennis, an 11-year-old sixth grader from Millbrook, had deer hunters from across the state shaking their heads in awe when she scored big on her first-ever hunting trip. Hunting on land in Elmore County that her father didn’t lease until September, the young lady used a youth model Weatherby .243 purchased the day before to take a 9-point, 200-lb. buck that possibly may be headed to the Alabama Whitetail Records book. It was a buck her father had previously only seen at night on game cameras.
Raegan was hunting on Nov. 16 during the youth season from a tree stand with her father, Carey, when the buck followed several does into the field.
Raegan Dennis shot this 200-lb. 9-point on her first deer hunting trip ever.
“The deer was huge,” she told AON. “It was really big. I was shaking so bad that I couldn’t hold the gun still, but when I finally got calmed down enough to keep the scope on the deer, I pulled the trigger slowly and shot him.”
She dispatched the buck with a 150-yard shot.
“When we found him, he was three times as big as I was,” she said.
The buck has not yet been officially scored, but it was rough scored in the high 140s.
The massive Madison County 19-point crossbow buck taken by Brock Creel during the early bow season was featured in the December issue of AON, but it had not been scored at the time.
Brock Creel downed this 19-point giant while hunting with a crossbow in Madison County.
Buckmasters and Alabama Whitetail Records book scorer Steve Lucas has now officially scored the deer, and it tallied 179 4/8 non-typical. Brock now has the new No. 1 irregular Alabama crossbow buck in Buckmasters. AWR lumps all bow-kills (compound bow, recurve and crossbow) in one category, and Brock’s buck is one of the Top-20 Alabama bow-kills of all time.
Brock, a 19-year-old from Madison County, was hunting on a 16-acre piece of property belonging to his dad’s friend. He took the record-book buck in the unincorporated community of Meridianville in Madison County.
Brock said he had put up game cameras on the property and saw the buck several times, and it appeared to be moving around the property pretty regular. Creel said he went to his step-father’s garage and found an old ladder stand and scrounged around and found a few ladder pieces. He put the stand up in the area where the game camera showed the buck was visiting. He got the buck with an easy shot on the second evening that he hunted from the stand
Bow-taken bucks must have a minimum score of 115 inches for typical and 140 inches for non-typical to be included in the AWR book, so Brock’s buck easily qualified.
Brock said he has been deer hunting for 10 years, and it was his first buck. He only had one doe to his credit previously.
