All is fair in love and war as the old saying goes. We are referring to the woes of free range Whitetails. Unfortunately when dealing with free range whitetails we are going to have a few that travel outside of boundaries within our control…and when that happens it is fair game….Hence, the Laws of Mother Nature. We just want to emphasize the quality of Whitetails we have under management here in Illinois. We would like to introduce a deer we had nicknamed Casper. As you could imagine why he had the nickname as he was a ghost. Casper became very visible on trail camera several years ago but not in the day light. As far as we know, no one else had pictures of him and for the most part even knew he existed. Casper at the age of three on rare occasions finally became visible just before dark several times, but unfortunately for us even knowing where he lived, ate and traveled; Casper had placed himself in a position impossible to access. Casper at the age of three was approximately 175” gross B&C. Casper at the age of four finally made his appearance on trail camera and trail camera only. We were speculating from the cameras that he was going to gross in the 210”-220’s”. Casper had made a miraculous jump in antler size. Casper at the time was still living in the exact same spot he always had been but this time never giving us a daylight chance. We spent countless hours on his tail to no prevail. Casper disappeared on camera after some bulldozing was done on a fence line by the farmer. We figured Casper would definitely return but as luck would have it on the morning of November 20, 2015 Casper’s legacy ended. A neighboring hunter who set out only to shoot does was sitting in his blind not having any luck because his neighbor was having fun trail riding on his four wheeler, the four wheeler evidently was the determining factor that pushed Casper out into an open field at 9:30 in the morning. Congratulations to John Briggs for harvesting such a magnificent animal. When speaking to Mr. Briggs he said “Doug, I would have been just as happy to shoot two does but he was the only thing I saw.” I do not blame him for shooting Casper as we all know this was a once and a lifetime deer….Who would not of… I personally do not think at the time Mr. Briggs had realized just how big Casper was and what he had accomplished. I guarantee you he knows now as Casper was officially scored at 210 4/8” at the age of four. Congrats again to Mr. Briggs. We are honored to have shared Casper’s legacy and look forward to his upcoming offspring.