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Morgantown hunter killed the buck everybody was talking about

ROANOKE, W.Va. — During the two week West Virginia buck hunting season, Travis Masoner of Morgantown and his daughter were hoping to kill a buck which had developed quite a following in the Lewis County area around Stonewall Jackson Lake.

Masoner hunts of a piece of property owned by his dad which sits adjacent to public land off the Roanoke exit. The property is also in close proximity to Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park. During the lead up to the season, it seemed like everybody in the local community, along with a lot of outsiders, had become well aware of this particular buck. The whitetail’s rack seemed out of place in central West Virginia which made him easily distinguishable from other deer in the area.

“Numerous people I know had pictures of him. There were sightings on both sides of I-79. There’s some public land off the Roanoke exit of I-79 and some guys I know had caught him on trail cameras in there. He was kind of a local rock star there with people who hunt and people going to and from the resort,” Masoner said in an interview for West Virginia Outdoors.

According to Masoner, it was no ordinary buck for this part of the state. The width of his antler spread was his most unique feature along with the near perfect symmetry.

“Sometimes you see a deer that wide and the tips don’t tend to bend back in, but he actually had a little bit of turnback toward the middle,” he said.

Masoner also knew the buck was an interloper. Nobody had seen anything like him until around Labor Day.

“This buck just kind of showed up. I’ve hunted this piece of property for years and I’ve never seen him and it’s not like he got that wide over the course of one year. We never saw any deer that even resembled him previously,” said Masoner.

While he was hoping to get a chance at the big buck, Masoner also knew there were a lot of potential pitfalls to getting there. Road kill along I-79 or U.S. Route 19 were the most prominent threats, but also illegal hunting from the roadway was also a concern. The first day of the season, Masoner noted the vehicles in the parking lot of the public property near the Roanoke exit typically is about 10, but this year it was more than 50. Everybody was after this particular buck.

Masoner’s daughter killed a buck right at daylight. He left his stand to help her with the field dressing and recovery, then returned to his spot. He didn’t have long to wait.

“I got back in my stand about nine-o’clock and not long after that he came cruising through in an open area I could see. I was fortunate enough to bag him,” said Masoner.

It was the biggest buck Masoner had ever killed and he even admitted it was the widest spread on a set of antlers he’d ever seen on any deer with his own eyes. The measurements were eyepopping. The buck sported a 25-inch inside spread and a 27-inch outside spread. According to Masoner the main beams were right about 28 inches and other than a slight variation in the two G-2 antlers, the 10-point buck is almost perfectly symmetrical.

Although there were certainly bigger bucks killed in other parts of the state, Masoner believed it was quite large for this part of West Virginia and unique. He was especially thrilled that he got the chance to take the buck so many were after during the 2022 season.

“That’s by far the biggest buck I ever killed. Being able to kill it while my daughter was with me and all the nostalgia. I was hoping somebody I knew or in my family would get a chance to bag it, the fact that I got to kill it was icing on the cake,” he said.





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