After Years of Close Calls, a Persistent Hunter Finally Claims an Elusive Giant
By Bob McNally (paraphrased version)
Originally published Nov 18, 2025
For three seasons, Brett Nauerth collected trail-camera images of an extraordinary Missouri whitetail, though almost every photo was timestamped after dark. He had never laid eyes on the living deer until October of this year.
“I had three separate encounters with him in just a few weeks, but each time he gave me the slip,” Nauerth told Outdoor Life. “I started calling him ‘Texas Red’ because he reminded me of that tough, hard-to-catch outlaw in the classic Marty Robbins ballad—except the song is actually called ‘Big Iron,’ and this deer definitely lived up to the outlaw reputation.”
Normally, the big buck spent the fall and early winter on a neighboring property, staying just out of reach. That changed this season when construction began on a new house in his core area.
“The heavy equipment and activity seemed to push him off that ground and onto the 240 acres of family property I hunt,” explained the 23-year-old electrician from Higbee, Missouri.
The land consists mainly of rolling hardwoods dotted with a few hayfields. Nauerth hunts from a 15-foot hang-on treestand he accesses with climbing sticks. After several failed attempts to call the buck within bow range using rattling antlers and grunt calls in October, his confidence had taken a hit.
By November 10, the trail cameras had gone quiet—no fresh photos of Texas Red for days. Still, Nauerth had a strong hunch that afternoon.
“It was cold, in the 30s, and something just told me I needed to be in the stand,” he said. “I clocked out of work early, around 2 p.m., and was settled in my tree by 3.”
At 5:40 p.m., he glassed a heavy-beamed buck nearly 300 yards away across an open field. Taking advantage of a brief lull in the wind, he crashed his rattling antlers together.
“When I put the binoculars back on him, he was already closing the distance to about 200 yards. That’s when I knew without a doubt it was Texas Red.”
The deer continued moving steadily in his direction. Nauerth fought to keep his nerves in check as the buck narrowed the gap.
“He looked rough—skinny and beat up,” Nauerth recalled. “You could tell he’d been battling other bucks hard during the rut.”
At 30 yards, Texas Red slipped behind a large shagbark hickory. Nauerth waited for the deer to step into a small shooting window through the brush.
“He moved right into the opening. I mouth-grunted to stop him, came to full draw, and let the arrow fly.”
Adrenaline surged, and Nauerth admitted to a slight case of target panic on the release. Shooting his 60-pound compound bow, the arrow struck higher and farther back than intended. For a moment he feared a gut shot, but he saw bright red blood exactly where the buck had been standing.
He backed out immediately and returned after full darkness with friends and neighbors. The blood trail started strong, then thinned out, forcing the group to fan out and grid-search slowly with flashlights.
They located the buck roughly 200 yards from the shot site.
“He was already stiff; he hadn’t gone far at all,” Nauerth said. “The broadhead had severed the major artery along the spine, and he bled out quickly. I got extremely lucky with that shot placement.”
Texas Red turned out to be a battle-scarred 5½-year-old with 17 scorable points. Broken brow tines and several kicker points that had snapped off during fights cost him about 12 inches of antler, but he still gross-scored right around 180 inches.
When asked if he’ll be back in a treestand when Missouri’s firearm deer season opens, Nauerth laughed and said, “For the first time in years, I’m not stressing about opening morning of gun season. We’ve got some other nice bucks on camera I might chase, but right now I’m just soaking it in—I finally got Texas Red.”
Original source: Outdoor Life, Nov 18, 2025
https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/missouri-buck-texas-red/
