Washington County’s Best Buck Stolen, Still Missing

Editor’s Note: The Washington County record buck killed by Jason Luttrull in 1999 was stolen from the Washington County Fair on Oct. 14, 2004. GON spoke with Jason’s best friend Chris Kevern on Sept. 2, 2020, and he confirmed that the deer is still missing. If you have information on the buck’s whereabouts, please call the Washington County’s Sherriff Office at 478.552.4795. If you prefer to share information through email, you can send it to GON at [email protected] and we’ll get it to the authorities. Here is the story of Jason’s buck that appeared in the 2000 issue of GON magazine.

By Duncan Dobie

It was a doe day in Washington County, and 17-year-old Jason Luttrull, of Orange Park, Fla., would have gladly settled for a doe. If someone had told him he was going to shoot a record-book buck that morning in 1999, he would have laughed. The odds of winning the lottery were probably greater, and the idea of shooting a county record had never occurred to him.

Jason simply loved to deer hunt with his friends. Like most young hunters eager to take their first antlered buck, he would have also settled for anything with a respectable set of “horns.” Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that his first buck would not only be an outstanding trophy, but it would also be the largest typical whitetail ever taken in Washington County.

Orange Park is a suburb of Jacksonville, Fla. Several years ago, Jason’s best friend, Chip Kevern, moved from Jacksonville to Deepstep, Ga., a small community about 10 miles west of Sandersville in Washington County. The two boys had met in church during their early teens. Deer hunting was but one of the many interests they shared in common, and they had become the best of friends.

“I’ve always been interested in guns and hunting,” Jason said. “I started shooting when I was around nine or 10. My grandparents live in Oklahoma, and I always went shooting with my grandfather whenever we visited out there. Also, my brother-in-law collects guns, and I’ve done some shooting with him. After Chris moved to Deepstep, he and his father invited me up to hunt with them in Washington County.

“Chris’s dad, Marc, owns an air-conditioning shop in Sandersville,” Jason said. “I got my hunter-safety card when I was 14 and started deer hunting with them. I’ve hunted with them every year since. Marc has been like a second dad to me. When I turned 16, I had to start buying a non-resident license. That really hurt, but it was worth it.”

During his first few years of hunting in Washington County, Jason shot two does and a button buck that was mistaken for a doe. When the 1999 season opened, he was more than ready to get his sights on an antlered buck. The ’99 season also marked Jason’s first year of bowhunting. That year, he was a senior in high school. Thanks to his schedule, he got out of school at 12 noon. This meant that he could jump in his truck and head north on Friday afternoon and arrive in Deepstep in time to hunt an hour or two before dark. He would usually hunt most of the day on Saturday with Chris and Marc, then return home on Sunday. Because of his strong religious convictions, Jason never hunts on Sunday.

Jason hunted the first few weekends of the ’99 bow season in Deepstep. Actually, Chris and Marc were members of a local hunting club. Jason was not in the club that year, and he could not hunt on club property. Through Ed Miller, a close friend of Marc’s, Jason was allowed to hunt on a small parcel of Ed’s property that was not leased. The tract is located on the north end of Deepstep. Ed is an avid deer hunter in his own right, and he has several good bucks hanging in his den to prove it.

Jason saw a nice 8-pointer during one of those weekends of bowhunting, but it was too far away for a shot. Then, on opening weekend of rifle season, he traded his bow for a gun. Opening weekend passed without incident. On the second weekend of the season, Jason was back in Georgia for another round of gun hunting. Saturday was doe day, and as mentioned, Jason was ready and willing to shoot a doe if the chance presented itself.

“When I first started hunting in Washington County, Marc would always put Chris and me out in a permanent stand, and he would hunt close by in case we needed help,” Jason says. “I hunted one particular permanent stand on Ed Miller’s land quite a bit. It’s about 12 feet off the ground, and it sits on the edge of a food plot. That’s where I was sitting on the morning of October 30th.”

Jason reached his stand well before daybreak on that unforgettable morning. Since Chris and Marc were hunting on their club property several miles away, Jason had driven to his stand alone and parked his truck out on the road some 300 yards away. Around 9 a.m., Jason saw a doe walking through the woods on the opposite side of the food plot from where he was sitting. He tried to get the doe in his scope, but several small limbs prevented him from getting a clear shot, and the doe disappeared.

“Around 10 a.m., I decided to climb down and move to another stand,” Jason said. “It had been over an hour since I had seen the doe. I decided to go over and look around in the woods where I had seen this doe. Marc had told me that if I saw a doe, I should always be alert in case a buck was following. I went over and stopped near the trail where she had been walking.”

Jason was standing motionless when he heard the rustling of leaves about 25 or 30 yards down in the woods from where he was standing.

“I looked down and saw a big buck,” Jason remembers. “He was walking broadside through the woods with his head down, but I could see that he had a nice rack. He had no idea I was there. I immediately thought, ‘Horns!’ and I raised my rifle and tried to get my scope on his shoulder.”

Jason was hunting with a Ruger Mark 77 .30/06 topped with a Simmons 4x-to-12x variable scope that Marc had gotten and sighted-in for him. All morning long, while Jason was sitting in his stand, the scope had been set on 12x. Now, Jason quickly realized that it was still set on its highest power.

“All I could see was a blur of gray hair because the buck was so close,” Jason remembers. “Because he was so close, I couldn’t risk trying to stop and adjust my scope. I was about to panic. I knew I had to shoot or he’d be gone. As soon as I thought I had his shoulder lined up in my scope properly, I pulled the trigger. He took off running downhill at full speed like a freight train. All I could think was, ‘I really messed up! I missed!’ I couldn’t believe I had missed such an easy shot because my scope was set on 12x.

“I walked down to where he had been standing and there was blood everywhere,” Jason continues. “That’s when I started getting nervous. I had been so calm and collected up to that point, but then I really got excited. I couldn’t believe I had actually hit him. I started following the blood trail and found him piled up on the ground about 75 yards away. When I saw him I yelled, ‘Yahoo!’ as loud as I could. I couldn’t believe how big his antlers were. He had 10 regular points and a couple of small burr points that weren’t quite an inch long.”

Jason Luttrull, 17, of Orange Park, Fla. killed the No. 1  buck in Washington County during the 1999 season. The 10-pointer is incredibly symmetrical, with only 1 7/8 inches in deductions overall! The final net score was 167 7/8 Boone & Crockett.

Jason knew he had downed a fine buck, but he had no idea just how big the trophy was. Later on, after it was officially measured, the Washington County giant would barely miss qualifying for the all-time Boone & Crockett record book by a mere 2 1/8 inches.

“I knew he’d be safe where he was because it was kind of an isolated area,” Jason remembers. “So I walked back to my truck and drove over to Chris’s house. No one was there, so I took off my boots and sat down and fixed a bowl of cereal.”

Chris and Marc had come out of the woods early that morning because they had to go into to town to run a few errands. They drove up to the house while Jason was eating his cereal. Jason walked out on the front porch with the bowl in his hand to greet them and tell them the news.

“What’d you shoot?” Marc yelled as he stepped out of the truck.

“A nice 10-pointer,” Jason answered without showing much emotion. Marc thought he was kidding.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “You must have shot a doe.”

“No, I’m serious,” Jason insisted. “I shot a 10-pointer.”

“How big is he?” Chris asked.

“He’s at least as big as your dad’s buck,” Jason answered.

Several years earlier, Marc had killed a beautiful 140-class trophy buck within a half mile of Jason’s stand. The mounted trophy was now hanging in the den. When they heard this news, Chris and Marc became more excited than Jason.

“Come on,” Marc said. “Let’s go get him!”

“I need to finish my cereal first,” Jason answered nonchalantly.

Marc couldn’t believe that Jason was so low-key about his accomplishment.

When they got to the woods, Chris was the first to reach the buck.

“He’s the biggest deer I’ve ever seen!” Chris yelled to his dad.

Marc walked around a bush that was hiding the buck from view.

“My jaw just dropped open, “Marc remembers. “All I could see was a massive set of horns.”

Marc knew that Jason had just shot a once-in-a-lifetime buck.

“You’ve got yourself a 150- to 160-class trophy!” Marc exclaimed.

Later on, back at the house, Marc carefully posed Jason and his trophy for some classic “in the field” photos. Unfortunately, he later discovered the camera had no film in it.

“I was just sick,” Marc recalls. “But there was nothing we could do.”

After the ill-fated photo session, the buck was loaded up and taken over to Ed Miller’s house.

“Ed couldn’t believe how big he was,” Marc said. “His eyes got huge when he saw those massive antlers sticking up in the back of the truck. Neither one of us could believe a buck that big had been shot on that particular piece of property. Ed figured the buck must have come in from an adjoining piece of property looking for does. We later green-scored the rack in the low 160s. We knew Jason’s buck might be a county record. The existing record at that time was around 162 or 163 B&C points, and depending on deductions, we knew it would be close.”

Jason took his buck to Mike Whitehead of Mike’s Taxidermy in Jacksonville to be caped out and mounted. While the cape was being processed, Jason took the antlers back to Deepstep a week or so later so that Marc could show them off.

“Everyone in Washington County wanted to look at them,” Marc says. “They definitely created a sensation!”

After the required 60-day drying period had passed, Marc and Ed Miller took the antlers over to Forsyth to have the trophy officially scored by Boone & Crockett measurer John West.

With a final net score of 167 7/8 typical B&C points, Jason’s exceptional 10-pointer was indeed a new record for Washington County. It was also the third largest typical buck taken in Georgia during the ’99 season. In August, Marc took the mounted trophy to the Perry Buckarama where it won the “Best in Show” category.

“A lot of the landowners around Deepstep have been practicing quality-deer management for the last few years,” Marc Kevern says. “We try not to shoot anything unless it’s a mounting-sized trophy, and it seems to be paying off.”

GON’s Official All-Time Washington County Buck Rankings

Editor’s Note: We’re adding photos and hunt stories online to GON’s Georgia Deer Records nearly every day. If you have old photos of the bucks you see listed online, or maybe you’d like to write your story of a buck killed years ago, that’s what gon.com is for. We want you to have a place in our online record book for your great-great grandkids to look at one day. Send what you have to [email protected].