Call it fate or whatever but Mississippi deer hunter Trevor Martin and his buddy put in for every draw hunt for bow or rifle possible and hit on Phil Bryant Wildlife Management Area.

Call it fate or whatever but Martin was there in the woods the morning of Dec. 17 hopeful of killing his first-ever buck on the Mississippi Delta, where deer grow bigger than those around his hometown of Hurley in eastern Mississippi.

Call it fate or whatever but after walking five miles and seeing only a doe, Martin, getting tired, turned around to hike back to his vehicle but picked an area between two clover and rye food plots to still-hunt for the final hour of daylight. Deer started showing themselves right away — first three bucks, none legal, then, to his left, three does.

However, another deer, a big-bodied deer with sizeable antlers, behind the does caught his attention.

The buck was approximately 230 yards away on the edge of a treeline. The deer hunter sized it up with the rifle scope’s maximum magnification.

Martin watched as the deer lifted its head and saw the horns stuck out beyond its ears. A legal Mississippi buck must have either a 16-inch inside spread or a 20-inch main beam.

“I said, ‘It’s go time,’ ” he said later while talking to a writer.

He rested the rifle on his knees, squeezed the trigger and the deer bolted into the woods. Martin called his buddy, Aaron Graham, also of Hurley, and started looking for a blood trail.

He found a fresh blood trail by the time Graham arrived. The sun was below the horizon, which required turning on headlamps to follow the blood trail 200 more yards to the buck’s body.

“Aaron was walking in front of me and we couldn’t really see the whole deer when we walked up on him. When I went to pick up his head, we both saw the tags, and I thought, ‘Oh God,’ ” Martin told Field & Stream’s Matthew Every in a story posted Dec. 20.

Ah, the tags.

Call it fate or whatever but Martin had shot and killed Buck 140, probably the most notorious deer in modern history. The Mississippi State University Deer Lab tagged and collared it in 2020 with a GPS unit that followed its journeys for two years before falling off prematurely in August (it was programmed to drop off in November).

Buck 140’s exploits were documented by major magazines such as Field & Stream and Outdoor Life, plus many newspapers, including The Clarion Ledger and The Daily Iberian. It traveled round trip 18 miles each way twice from the Phil Bryant WMA’s Ten Point Unit to southeastern Louisiana and on all four occasions swam the Mississippi River.

Martin and Graham didn’t know about Buck 140 until they read about him on the drive from Hurley to the Phil Bryant WMA. Martin just wanted to shoot a legal buck while hunting hard for three days.

The realization that he’d downed the celebrated deer hit home quickly. Martin and Graham began sending photos to friends, family and hunters back at the camp.

A crowd gathered at the camp by the time they returned with the deer.

“We pulled up and they surrounded the truck. Then this big guy named Scott (Garrard) offered to help. He grabbed that deer out of the truck like it was a rag doll and had it caped, cleaned and deboned in no time. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that. I was exhausted from walking all day, and by the time we got back to camp it was really nice to have the help,” Martin told Field & Stream.

He took the deer to his taxidermist for CWD testing per Mississippi regulations. The buck was determined to be 5 ½ years old.

Martin also contacted the MSU Deer Lab, which then sent him trail camera photos it had of the buck. The Deer Lab had completed its study on Buck 140 but encouraged deer hunters to shoot the deer if they saw it so they could glean more information. If Buck 140 tests positive for Chronic Waste Disease, researchers will have strong proof that whitetails can spread the disease over distance because this one wintered in a CWD management zone.

Buck 140’s unofficial gross score was 136.

Martin was proud of the kill. On his Facebook page soon after Dec. 17, he wrote: “… Of all the hunters and obstacles he manages to avoid on a yearly basis throughout his 18-mile journey, I can’t believe I was presented with the once in a lifetime opportunity of tagging such a famous buck. This hunting trip couldn’t have been better!”

Call it fate or whatever.