Rack Report: Jennifer Weaver's 196-Inch Illinois Bow Kill

Jennifer Weaver and her boyfriend, Kyle Heuerman, had a remarkable history with this buck, both good and bad. Their encounters dated back to 2010 and included summer velvet photos, trail camera photos and multiple sightings. Kyle even passed on the buck in 2010.

Those were the good encounters. But an encounter this fall became a nightmare for Kyle. He shot the buck with a bow on the evening of October 4. He thought it was a fatal hit, but after reviewing the footage from his video camera, it was clear the shot had hit either the shoulder or leg bone.

Hours of tracking and searching -- even a tracking dog was involved — turned up nothing. Kyle was devastated. He thought there was a chance the buck had survived, though, so he moved his trail cameras to the areas where he thought an injured buck would hole up. And sure enough, two weeks later, the buck showed up on camera and looked fine. I literally jumped up and down screaming for joy when I saw the buck again, he said. The hunt for the buck they had named Kick-it-In, because of a kicker point growing inward off the main beam, was back on.

The night Kyle shot the buck, it was feeding in soybean food plot. As luck would have it, the deer began using the soybean field again. Kyle and Jennifer felt they might get another chance at him once the rut caused him to let down his guard. The final encounter occurred in a staging area 200 yards from that food plot.

Jennifer held the bow that evening while Kyle filmed. A mature 8-pointer with a doe bedded in front of them. A little later, they saw the giant working his way through the timber at an angle that would keep him out of range. Kyle snort-wheezed, and both bucks collided in a battle that tore up the entire area. Adrenaline raged in both hunters as the bucks battled it out. They didn't know if an ethical shot would present itself. But a yearling buck snuck in and chased the doe right by their stand. That small twist of fate turned the tables. When the fight finally broke up, the 8-pointer left at a dead run, and the big buck began to walk away when it hit the trail of the hot doe, which led him right to the stand. Despite being extremely shook up from all the excitement, Jennifer put the Montec on the money, and the buck fell only 80 yards away.

Kyle is in the enviable position of having an attractive girlfriend who loves to hunt with him. But what happens when the girlfriend shoots the buck of your dreams?

Kyle says he wouldn't be any happier if he had shot the deer himself. I had told her I didn't know if she could keep her nerves together long enough to shoot the buck, so I better shoot him, he says. But he admits he said that just to help her settle down, and really planned to let her shoot the buck all along. Jennifer had been practicing hard all summer and was deadly with her bow.

The buck has been green scored at 196 4/8, and may be one of the largest whitetails ever taken by a woman on camera. It has a 20 ½-inch spread and sports main beams of 26 ½ inches.

See more pictures of this great buck here.

Have a big-buck story you want to share? E-mail us at [email protected].