Wayne County Outlook

Posted February 24, 2015 at 7:23 pm

Most teenage boys are too busy gripping a video game controller or some other device to be interested in holding a gun or even deer hunting.

But this past modern gun season, Cody McLean, 13, killed what could be the largest typical whitetail deer on the Boone and Crockett scoring system in Wayne County with the very first deer he ever killed.

The kill ended a quest for the trophy buck McLean had stalked for nearly two years.

“It was pretty cool, because it was the big one I had seen for two years,” McLean said. “I was feeling like I wasn’t going to hit it because I missed last year.”

McLean’s deer registered 182 0/8 on the Boone and Crockett scale.

If accepted by the Boone and Crockett records committee, it would not only be the largest taken in Wayne County, but also would be the 30th largest deer taken in the state, based on the system’s criteria.

McLean killed the massive 12-point stag with a .308 Ruger on his family’s farm in Frazier.

Official Boone and Crockett Scorer Dale Weddle, of Nancy, scored the deer.

He noted the magnitude of such an animal.

“Only a handful of typical whitetails break the 180 inch mark in Kentucky in any given year,” Weddle said. “At present, Cody’s buck is the largest typical that I am aware of being taken in Kentucky during the 2014 season.”

He added that it’s very rare for somebody to bag a deer of that caliber in this area.

Cody’s deer at 182 0/8, when accepted by the Boone and Crockett Records Committee, should rank as the largest typical whitetail deer ever taken in Wayne County,” Weddle said. “The previous largest (in Wayne County) was a tie–180 2/8 by Danny G. Smith taken in 2012 and taken by Green Hamlin in 1966.”

Still being new to the sport, there he was initially some debate as to where Cody should place the ground blind was in when he killed the deer moments before he took the kill shot.

“His dad had just told him he didn’t like where he (Cody) had put the blind,” McLean said. “Afterwards he (Cody) said, ‘Dad, what do you think about where I put that blind?’”

McLean has been hunting for two years, primarily with his dad, Steve McLean, and hunts mornings and nights during modern gun season, if he can.

In a sport largely dominated by adults, McLean has certainly left his mark on the deer hunting record books.

But it turns out, all Cody was doing was following his father’s lead.

“I’d always wanted to do it because my dad has an eight-point buck down in the basement mounted.”