A Massachusetts deer hunter who got caught with his pants down still managed to arrow a buck with a 196 1/8-inch spread that, fittingly, became the No.2-ranked deer in the Bay State.

Hunters know when ya gotta go ya gotta go and that’s what Chris Alberini had to do the morning of Nov. 21, according to a story posted Jan. 27 by Field & Stream. He was out before dawn that day, excited because he might have another chance to shoot a big buck seen on trail cams since 2016.

A friend of his got the first photo of the buck that year. Alberini began getting photos of it over the next few years. The deer with the big rack became notorious for walking a wide range, thus grabbing the attention of other deer hunters chasing the buck, too.

“From one point to the other, we probably had him up to 5 miles apart on the edge of his range. He was all over the place during the rut,” Alberini told Field & Stream’s Josh Honeycutt.

He did his homework by studying maps and apps in an effort to track the big whitetail deer’s favorite area. He never pinpointed it exactly but believed it was on nearby property where hunting was banned.

Alberini figured a pine thicket near the property on legal hunting land was close enough to the location. He set up several trail cams in 2020 and, sure enough, the buck stayed there for a few days during the rut in 2020 and again in 2021.

He placed a cell camera there with the intention of hunting as soon as he received a photo of that deer. He hunted the area twice in mid-October and on three different occasions saw a doe running out of the thick, only to be cut off and the buck guided each back into the cover.

On the second day the buck also chased a 6-pointer horning in on his territory. Alberini was there and ready.

“He shot past me at 40 yards. And when he came back, I got a shot – but missed. A deer I’ve been chasing this long, one that I never see and finally do … I was devastated,” he told Honeycutt.

His hunting buddies and his wife urged him to keep hunting, which is why he was in the spot for an all-day hunt from his tree stand Nov. 21. He saw deer, all right, including a large 8-pointer he let walk because, after all, he had one buck tag remaining in his pocket.

“It was the hardest pass of my life. This was a big, mature 8-pointer, and I let him walk. He went into the bedding cover where I figured the big buck was,” Alberini said in the magazine story.

He had drank a lot of coffee up to 10:30 a.m. As luck would have it, the call of nature prompted him to get out of the tree stand and get on the ground, where he shed his saddle gear and outer layers at the bottom of the tree, grabbed his bow and arrows and walked about 60 yards to go No. 2.

“As soon as I get started, this huge commotion breaks loose,” Alberini said.

Two does ran lickety split out of the swamp, followed by an 8-pointer, then the big buck he’d seen in all the images. The huge whitetail got within 40 yards, saw his pile of clothes under the tree and froze.

Alberini’s trousers were still around his ankles as he squatted. Hmmmmm.

“The deer were running so fast that even if I was in the stand, I wouldn’t have gotten a shot. They were going full speed. Maybe I would have gotten an opportunity later, but no on that initial run,” he said.

The buck turned its head and the compromised deer hunter saw the drop-tine that identified the dream deer he’d been chasing for years within range of his bow. Alberini leaned back against a tree and grabbed his bow.

Then the buck walked directly at him. Alberini drew his bow at 30 yards and held.

It continued walking closer, which caused him to fret the buck might see his shiny bare skin. He decided to shoot at 25 yards, put the top pin on the buck’s chest and fired an arrow through its vitals.

The mortally wounded buck stopped, looked right at him, took three more steps and collapsed dead on the spot.

Alberini said, “I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was him at that point. The pictures just don’t do the mass of his rack justice.”

Naturally, he couldn’t waddle over to the deer. He squatted again, wiped, pulled his pants up and walked to the deer.

“It’s kind of bittersweet. There’s no way I’m going to beat that deer around here. But I don’t care what he scores. He’s a great deer. It was great to share it with all the other guys who hunted him, too,” he said.

He believes the buck was 9 ½ or 10 ½ years old. If not for broken tines, it would have topped the current Massachusetts archery state record for a buck that grossed 198 inches.

Alberini will settle for No. 2.

If you enjoyed this story, wait until next Sunday to read a feature story about a local deer hunter’s wild and ultra-productive 30 seconds or so of hunting Jan. 22 in the Atchafalaya Basin . Matt Migues of Lydia will never, ever forget it. And neither will his buddies who were with him.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.