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Saturday, August 16, 2025 at 12:04 AM

Aged to perfection

Just when Forrest Hodges thought his deer season couldn’t get any better, it did. On September 28 — opening day of the current statewide Managed Lands Deer and Archery Only whitetail seasons — the 37-year-old logging contrac- tor from Jacksonville brought down a free-ranging whitetail buck with a magnificent set of antlers.
Forrest Hodges, 37, with the trio of free ranging whitetails he took off his property in Cherokee County between Sept. 28 and Oct. 1 using Managed Lands Deer per-mits provided by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Depart-ment. All of the bucks were 7 1/2 years old.

Just when Forrest Hodges thought his deer season couldn’t get any better, it did.

On September 28 — opening day of the current statewide Managed Lands Deer and Archery Only whitetail seasons — the 37-year-old logging contrac- tor from Jacksonville brought down a free-ranging whitetail buck with a magnificent set of antlers. Sporting 20 scorable points with thick main beams, the buck ran up a Boone and Crockett score of 187 4/8 inches. It weighed 220 pounds.

Amazingly, Hodges tagged two more mature bucks over the following three days that were equally impres-sive. Among them were a 195-pound 16 pointer scor-ing 188 2/8 B&C and a 219 pound 19 pointer taped at 178 6/8.

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