Shelton Earls didn’t know what he’d killed, to be honest, when his daughter called after he’d just dropped the hammer on one of the biggest non-typical bucks ever taken in Mississippi.

Earls, who is 72 years old, was hunting alone with his .45-70 rifle last December on property near Natchez. He had game camera photos of a nice 10-point buck and figured he’d sit a while with hopes that it came within range. Earls only had his .45-70 because he mistakenly believed Mississippi’s primitive weapons season was open, when in reality the rifle season was in.

But instead of the big 10, Earls watched a gnarly non-typical buck walk out and begin feeding toward his stand. He couldn’t believe how unusual it looked. When he finally shot and dropped it, instead of going to check out the buck and jump it if it was still alive, he went home after calling his wife, daughter and son-in-law. None of them answered.

After sipping a soda to relax, Earls returned to the field where his buck lay. Then his daughter rang his cell phone.

“She called and I was just getting excited and she asked me if I had killed anything, and I couldn’t even think of the words ‘dominant buck,’ so I told her ‘I just killed the wood boss,” he said, laughing at the memory. “Oh, me, I was so excited. I told her he was big, a really big one. She asked me how many points he had and I had my hand on the antlers and I started counting, 11, 12, 13, 14 …

“She said, ‘You mean you killed a 14-point?’ I had to tell her that I was still only counting that one side of the rack. I said ‘you ain’t gonna believe what I killed.’ Well, she was at the deer camp and she had her cell phone on speaker and a bunch of them sitting around said she’d better get up there and check it out and help him.”

Earls’ son-in-law arrived a bit later and they got the beast loaded. Earls has had it scored a few times, with scores ranging from 222 to 228 inches. The rack has more than 30 points and thick palmation along the top of the main beams. It’s definitely unusual!

Check out the full story here in Mississippi Sportsman.

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