Switch to Saddle Hunting Yields Enormous 17-Point, 200-Inch Buck

Saddle hunting has a fairly steep learning curve, so taking a big, mature buck in your first year or two can be considered quite the accomplishment. What 26-year-old Gage Shepard did last fall, however, is nothing short of extraordinary. In only his second year of hunting from a saddle, the Illinois resident tagged a 200-inch, 17-point monster. And not only was it his first-ever deer from the saddle — buck or doe — he took it on a property of less than 5 acres in size!

The Switch to Saddle Hunting

A resident of Carterville, Ill., Shepard spends most of his time hunting public parcels in the southern part of the state. Over the years, however, the idea of lugging his fairly heavy climbing stand long distances to get away from the crowds became less and less appealing. Hence, he started looking into purchasing a saddle, digesting everything he could find when it came to saddle setups and saddle hunting.

“I consume a lot of hunting media; I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I did a lot of research on them,” Shepard said. “I was like, it seems like saddle hunting is the way to go, at least for the public-land hunter who is walking in a mile or more, who needs to be mobile, and it just seemed like a much better option.

“I was already sort of doing the mobile thing with a climber, and it just seemed like that was the move to cut on weight and get in a wider variety of trees.”

Shepard spent more than a year doing his homework before making his purchase, ultimately settling on the Tethrd Phantom Saddle, a Tethrd platform and Timber Ninja C1 Carbon Fiber Sticks.

“I knew I wanted to do it,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure I got exactly what I wanted, and I was sort of in the mindset of I just want to buy it once and make sure it’s quality stuff. So, I just bought everything I could think of at once. Of course, there were things that came later that I had to add on.”

How It All Began

An avid bowhunter, Shepard’s love for hunting stems from his upbringing, when he would accompany his grandfather, Ron, into the woods during deer season starting at age 10. When Shepard was old enough to hunt, he started going afield with a shotgun and, a few years later, he got his hands on a bow.

“My grandfather hunted with the bow at the time, but I was still pretty young,” Shepard said. “After a few years, I got into bowhunting and it was game over. I was hooked. With the season being longer, and having to get closer to [the deer], I was obsessed by that, you could say.”

It’s fitting then that it was his grandfather who first captured the buck on camera, sharing a video of the deer with Gage in October 2022. Although he was intrigued by the big buck, Shepard only had limited time to hunt when he made the three-hour drive north from his home to west-central Illinois. Hence, he stuck with the properties in that area that he knew well and didn’t really give the deer much thought the rest of the season.

“He was a really nice buck [that] year,” Shepard said. “I would guess he would probably have been 180-class. But he had some different features…the kickers he had on one of his G2s were still present but smaller. There was no question it was this buck [the same buck I took the next season], but I never ended up going in there and hunting him.”

Fast-forward to 2023, and Shepard was sitting in a treestand in early November when his grandfather sent him a photo of a large buck. This time, the young hunter took a totally different approach to the rest of his season.

“It was obviously a really nice deer. I assumed [my grandfather] was out driving around and saw it. I said, ‘Where was that at?’ It turns out it was very close to the property I could hunt. I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’

“Something clicked in my brain. I saw those kickers and I was like, ‘That is that buck from last year.’ I went and searched [on my phone] and found that video from 2022 and sure enough, that was him, which told me that he does use this property, at least from time to time. He was there last year, and odds are he’ll come back through at some point. I literally got out of my treestand and started making a plan basically to go after him.”

Close Encounter

That same day, Nov. 5, Shepard visited the property since he was in the general area, placing trail cameras to gather some scouting intel. Although the land he could hunt is small — approximately 4.7 acres, with only about 2-3 acres of woods on it — it is part of a larger block of timber that’s surrounded by agriculture.

“This buck, I believe, was just using this piece of timber as kind of a travel corridor,” Shepard said. “On the back side of the property, there’s a larger piece that I don’t believe gets hunted. I don’t know that for a fact, but I was thinking that he liked staying in there and he would use this piece. Not daily, but sometimes he’d be moving through there.”

The first day Shepard hunted the property was Nov. 9, and he actually saw the buck about 60 yards away.

“It was kind of an action-packed morning,” Shepard recalled. “I could not believe I saw him on my first sit out there. That was kind of what really set the tone for me as far as thinking there is a real possibility that I could kill this deer.”

Unfortunately, the monster was in hot pursuit of a doe and never came close enough for a shot, nor did it react to any of Shepard’s calls. Shortly after the doe disappeared into the timber, the buck walked out into a CRP field.

“He was angling away from me, but I was watching him grunting, mouth open,” Shepard said. “It was incredible.”

Memorable Holiday Hunt

Over the next couple weeks, Shepard made several sits on the property, but never caught sight of the buck. Then, on Nov. 22, he got two photos of the deer on his trail camera around 4:30 p.m., raising his enthusiasm level for the coming weekend. Since it was Thanksgiving weekend, Shepard could not hunt the Thursday or Friday due to family obligations, but he was back in his saddle well before first light on Saturday.

“I sat probably until 11 o’clock and I did not see that many deer — a few does and maybe a small 8-pointer,” Shepard recalled.

After heading out for a lunch break, Shepard returned to the woods in the early afternoon. For some reason, he had a strong feeling that the buck might appear during that sit.

“I get up in the tree about 1, and he ended up being the first deer that I saw that night,” Shepard recalled. “I think it was right around 4:15 and I see this deer. And he’s walking my way. It’s odd to say this, but I was really very calm in the moment. It’s almost like I was expecting him to show up right on cue.

“He’s making his way toward me and he hops on this trail and I recognize that he’s not going to get any closer. I can see the trail — the path he’s taking, the trajectory — and I’m like this is as close as he’s getting, but he’s really not that far.”

As the deer continued walking, Shepard ranged one shooting window at 35 yards, but the deer moved through the opening before he could get a shot. Thankfully, there was another open area a few yards from that spot. A quick range reading showed that spot to be 39 yards away, letting Shepard know any shot he would get would be between 35-40 yards, farther than he might like, but within his effective range.

“He gets into the opening. I draw back. It was not the perfect setup. I’ll be the first to admit that,” Shepard said. “I had a branch that my top cam was actually bumping into and I kind of had to scrunch down. But he stopped naturally and I settled the pin on him and I made my shot. My initial thought was I hit low.”

After bolting a few yards, the deer stopped and stood there, causing Shepard to think he made a less-than-ideal shot. However, the deer soon started to move and sway as if off balance, and just as the buck was about to walk out of his eyesight, Shepard saw the tips of its antlers thrashing wildly from side to side. Then he heard a few sticks break, and the woods went silent.

“I felt like he could very well be laying there dead, but I also couldn’t visually see him…,” Shepard said. “I sat there the rest of the night until it was dark… I left my whole setup out there — my sticks and platform. I just didn’t want to make any noise and snuck out.”

As adrenaline and uncertainty both coursed through his veins, Shepard waited as patiently as he could, letting several hours pass before he returned to the woods to look for the deer. Joining him on his search were his friend Austin; Austin’s dad, Doug; and Shepard’s girlfriend, Lexi, who was on her first-ever venture to recover a deer.

“I just went straight to spot I thought I last saw him and at first, we didn’t find him,” Shepard said. “Everything’s dark now, and things are looking slightly different [since] we’re on the ground instead of in the tree. I started to sort of panic, thinking maybe he really did just continue walking into the timber, but after probably 10-15 minutes of searching, my girlfriend was actually the one who found him.

“He was right where I last saw him. With his antlers thrashing like that, I think that was his final moment there.”

Shepard said walking up to the deer was an unbelievable feeling that brought waves of emotion.

“I couldn’t believe what I was looking at really. I was glad to be with friends and family,” he said. “It’s sort of sad to see a deer like that — his life and story — come to an end. I think about how potentially 6½ years ago he was just some little spike buck; what was I doing back then? Yes, [there were] lots of emotions, but mostly just total bliss.”

Making the night even more special was the fact that he was able to show the deer to his grandfather, the person who had started him on the deer-hunting path some 15 years prior.

“He’s 81 now. He still deer hunts, but he struggles. He’s got some balance issues. It’s just harder for him to move around in the timber, but he’s still passionate about it. Him seeing that deer was one of the best parts; just him being proud of me and seeing all this hard work come together.”

Deer of a Lifetime

Even though Shepard hunts the big-buck mecca that is Illinois and has some very respectable antlered deer on his walls, his 2023 buck is by far his largest ever. The deer, which was green scored at 206⅛ by his taxidermist, sports 17 total points, with a 166⁄8-inch inside spread, good mass throughout and three kickers on the left side of its rack. It will be officially scored when Shepard gets the mount back later this year.

“The G2s, one was 10.5 [inches long] and one was 10⅞," Shepard said. “The G3 on his right side was 12⅝ and the other one was 10⅞. That one was almost 13 inches, it looks huge.

“I thought of him as kind of a more narrow buck. I knew he was a giant, but I thought if anything his spread would be what potentially held him back from [being] that 200-class buck.”

The Saddle-Hunting Advantage

Although Shepard got a saddle mainly for his public-land deer hunts, the saddle played a huge role in killing the buck on the 5-acre tract. For one thing, it allowed him to enter and leave the small parcel fairly quietly compared to lugging a climbing stand on his back. Second, it provided the flexibility and versatility he needed to adjust to what was going on in the woods around him.

“The main reason I wanted to use a saddle is because I just hadn’t spent a ton of time on this piece, and I wanted to be able to adapt to what I was seeing,” Shepard said.

After a handful of sits, Shepard did end up switching trees. And although he only moved about 50 yards away from his original location, it made all the difference in the world.

“Ultimately, that’s why I chose the saddle,” he said. “For one, I guess it’s less of a hassle than putting up a treestand in there. And [second], it just allowed me to adapt to what the deer were doing, even though it’s a smaller piece, and move around within there to put that puzzle together.”

Following the hunt, Shepard shared some of his photos of the deer on social media. He immediately started getting congratulations, as well as trail-cam photos from others who had been after the deer. Looking back, he said he’s very fortunate to have taken a buck of this size and quality, and it’s a memory he’ll cherish the rest of his life.

“I love bowhunting, and I feel very fortunate to have had an opportunity at a deer like this,” he said.

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