Cellular Trail Cam Leads To 178-Inch Monroe County Bruiser

On Nov. 8, Mike Worley killed a 178-inch buck in Monroe County on a 700-acre family lease. What makes his story really interesting is that Mike says he owes the success of taking such a big deer to a new trail camera he purchased this year.

“Me, my brother and my uncle have had this lease for the last 13 years, and we’ve managed it to try and grow trophy bucks. We use 4s Wildlife Advantage products religiously, especially their protein. We live down in central Florida, so we rely heavily on game cameras to monitor deer and their growth,” said Mike.

Spread across their 700 acres are nearly 40 trail cameras monitoring the woods 24 hours a day. The newest camera is the Arlo Go, which allows hunters to view what’s going on day or night through cellular service.

“On the morning of Nov. 8, I was running a little late to the stand and got a call from my brother asking if I looked at the camera on my phone. When I told him no, he said I had better. As soon as I did, I couldn’t believe it. Since we’ve had the lease, I’ve gotten over a million pictures, and not one has been of this buck,” said Mike.

Mike opted to hunt a stand 500 yards from the live camera in hopes the buck would emerge.

“After sitting a while, I started watching the camera with my phone, and suddenly the buck just walked up to the camera and stood there,” said Mike.

The deer eventually walked off but didn’t come in Mike’s direction. He stayed on the stand as long as he could before going to take care of some things around 1 p.m.

Later that afternoon, Mike was back on the stand despite the rain that had moved in.

A short while later, after seeing a few small bucks, Mike spotted the giant buck on the field edge. After rattling and grunting for a few minutes, he was able to get the buck to step out into the field. A gentle squeeze to the trigger of his 6mm BR sent the buck sprinting across the field 80 yards before he piled up.

Mike will not be entering his buck into the Truck-Buck contest since he did not have a current GON Magazine Subscription when he killed the buck.

Mike’s buck is a 15-pointer that will score as a typical, main-frame 5X7 with three abnormal points that total 6 2/8 inches. At 178 total gross inches, the buck should end up netting in the mid 150s. The deer will be officially scored by a Boone & Crockett measurer sometime after the required 60-day drying period. After that, Mike’s buck will be entered in GON‘s County-by-County Big-Buck rankings.

To crack the top-10 in Monroe County, Mike’s buck will need to net at least 157 3/8 inches. That spot is currently held by S.M. Driskell with a deer he killed in 1974.

“I still can’t believe the way it went down,” said Mike. “Without my new camera, I wouldn’t have got this buck. He was in full rut and must have moved onto our property chasing a doe. Without the camera, I never would have known he was there.”