Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
G-2 … Bingo!
Bryant hunter takes amazing whitetail
After five years of photo surveillance, losing a lease, and competing with another hunter, Dennis Allen of Bryant killed a buck of a lifetime.
Allen named the buck G-2 because of a unique G-2 tine sporting four points that form a star. Its rack also has a pair of droptines. The rack grossed a preliminary Boone and Crockett non- typical score of 175 2/8. Allen said it will probably net about 167. That’s well short of the 195 minimum necessary for a non-typical to qualify for Boone and Crockett’s AllTime Awards book, but Allen said G-2 probably far exceeded that score in his prime. The buck was at least 10 years old when Allen finally took him down with a muzzleloader on Oct. 21.
“I think 2020 was his peak year,” Allen said. “We estimate that he was over 200 inches.”
Allen, 29, a firefighter for the Bryant Fire Department, said he began hunting G-2 in 2017. A remote camera photographed the buck on the second day of the 2017 archery deer season.
“Before that, I had no idea this deer existed,” Allen said.
The story could have ended there. Allen said the landowner sold the property that year, forcing Allen to find another place to hunt.
“I had to move away from him,” Allen said. “The closest I could get to him was 1,000 yards.”
Allen did not get a photo of G-2 in 2018-19, but G-2 finally reappeared on camera in 2020.
“His characteristics were absolutely the same deer,” Allen said.
From that point on, G-2 exhibited a solid pattern. He appeared on camera Nov. 10, Nov. 13, and Nov. 17, always at about 4:30 p.m. He appeared in three-day intervals, disappeared for 10 days, and then reappeared in three-day intervals.
Knowing a pattern is one thing. Taking advantage of it is another. A firefighter works a strange schedule and can’t hunt whenever he wants.
The 2020 season passed without Allen seeing G-2 in person. So passed the early part of the 2021 archery season, as well. G-2 continued his predictable pattern through October, and their paths finally crossed at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 21.
“He showed up in bright daylight, just strolling through the woods,” Allen said.
At a range of about 30 yards, Allen shot G-2 with a Wolf muzzleloader packed with a 245-gr. Powerbelt bullet and Triple 7 50/50 pellets.
After Allen posted photos of G-2 on social media, another hunter contacted him. He had also been hunting G-2 at Lake Maumelle Wildlife Management Area, which abuts the land that Allen leases. G-2 had also frequented the other hunter’s spot on alternate days.
“After I talked with the guy that had hunted G-2 on public land, we pinpointed his bedding area. It was right between us,” Allen said. “On my lease you can bait. On public land you can’t. I think the bait is what steered him to our property as a consistent food source. He would be at my stand for three or four days, be gone for 10 days and show back up for three or four days. The same thing was happening to the guy on public land.”
Though an accomplished bowhunter, Allen said nothing prepared him for the excitement of seeing such an exceptional buck as G-2.
“I really wasn’t expecting that deer to show up,” Allen said. “I recognized it as soon as I saw it. I knew it by heart. I can’t count how fast my heart was beating. I was thinking, ‘Don’t mess this up.’ I was trying to control everything I was doing to be quiet.”
When G-2 appeared, the sun was at Allen’s back. There was a sunspot on the ground. Allen said he saw a shadow pass. On a second stand beside Allen was Scott Nalley, who was shooting the hunt on video. Allen tapped Nalley’s leg to alert him that a buck was near.
Allen saw legs moving through the brush, and then he saw G-2’s head about 30 yards away. Allen silently begged G-2 to continue walking to a more open location.
“When he got to where he was, I had an opening on his shoulder,” Allen said. “He needed to go only 4 more yards to the road that we were sitting on.”
A slight noise from the stand alerted G-2. The buck had been relaxed, but it suddenly turned nervous. Allen decided that a small opening was good enough.
“This is a deer of a lifetime,” Allen said. “If he turns and whirls out of there when I had chance to shoot him, I think I would be hard on myself. I thought about letting him get to road, but I also knew I’d probably never see a bigger buck than this.”
The shot was perfect. G-2 ran 50 yards and collapsed.
“After the shot, I could not control the shakes,” Allen said.
Allen attributed his good fortune to Nalley, who has a reputation for being very lucky when it comes to hunting mature whitetails. A couple of days before G-2 arrived, Nalley shot a big 10- point buck.
“We hunt together a lot,” Allen said. “Because of what we’ve been through at our deer lease, just us hunting together, and him being really considered lucky when comes to deer hunting. He shot that big 10-point, and he said he’d video me if I wanted to shoot a big deer.”
Allen said he expected to shoot one of two big 8-point bucks that had been coming around regularly.
“G-2 hadn’t been around for awhile, so I didn’t expect to see him,” Allen said. “He comes in after we’d been in the stand for only 25 minutes.”
And to think, it happened little more than a stone’s throw from Arkansas 10.