If you ask any hunter out there that consistently shoots mature bucks “what’s the secret to your success” the most common answer you will hear is “pay your dues.” Get out there and make mistakes, screw up on a big deer, go in too far and bump him out of his bed, and the list goes on and on. It seems like if you want to kill big deer, you have to make a bunch of mistakes and learn from them to help you capitalize on that big 5-year-old that only daylights 3 days a year on your property.

That is the secret to success in the whitetail woods, well most of the time. Sometimes, being in the right place at the right time is the best way to kill a giant. There are examples of that all over the place when it comes to legendary whitetails, but the one that stands out the most is the James Rath Buck.

In the summer of 1977 in Buffalo Lake, Minnesota, James Rath was working his family's farm when he first noticed the giant feeding in their fields. The rath family had shot plenty of big bucks off the farm, but none looked like this particular deer. James, age 29 at the time, wasn’t an experienced trophy hunter, with only a spike to his name going into the 1977 season. Still, he knew he had to give this monster non-typical a sincere effort during the upcoming gun season.

As summer faded into fall and the changing of the seasons came and went, James and his dad kept an eye on the giant and noticed that the buck was always around a small section of trees right in the middle of hundreds of acres of agriculture. Finally, the November gun season arrived and the family set out with a plan to go after the monster whitetail. The first day was spent putting on drives in patches of hardwoods around the farm, with no sight of the buck.

On the second day, James, his dad, and several of his friends put a plan together to drive the patch of woods where James’ dad suspected that the buck lived. James and a friend sat on the east end as his dad and another friend began the drive on the west end. He sat in a thick patch in the timber with only a 25-yard wide opening that he could shoot, hoping it would give him a quick shot.

As the drivers made their way through the dense stand, he heard his dad yell, “A buck is breaking out to the side!” James watched as a small buck made a break for it, followed by a loud crash in the brush heading straight for the opening in front of him. He caught glimpses of a huge buck and squeezed the trigger on his Ithaca 12 gauge. The slug caught the buck squarely in the neck, causing him to somersault right in front of him.

As James approached, he could hardly contain himself. He knew this was the largest rack he’d ever seen. The hunters field-dressed the animal and took the rack to a local sporting goods store, where it won the deer contest by a landslide. The buck’s field-dressed weight was an impressive 265 pounds.

Upon examination of the jawbone, game warden officials esti­mated that this incredible buck was only 3 1/2 years old when shot. The score doesn’t truly reflect how impressive this buck was. For instance, if the Rath Buck hadn’t grown any abnor­mal points, he would have netted 199 6/8 as a clean 5×5, making him a Top 10 typical. On the other hand, I’d say the average buck that scores around 230 non-typical (as this one does) will have close to 60 inches of non-typical points pre­sent, as opposed to the 31 4/8 inches this deer actu­ally grew. The rack had 19 scoreable points and an inside spread that measured 25 6/8 inches, which gave it a truly impressive 231 2/8 net non-typical score. The rack carries an insane amount of mass the length of the main beam, and the color of the rack is second to none.

Shooting a 230” buck anywhere in the united states is a feat in itself, but going from a spike right to a world-class whitetail is an accomplishment that few can claim. This just goes to show that you can scout, plan, and hunt as much as you want, but it all comes down to being in the right place at the right time.

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