BREWER BUCK

Teenage hunter’s Bowie County whitetail ranks best in Texas, earns B&C recognition

• Brewer’s dad, Rickey, captured numerous game camera images of the buck leading up
• Reili Brewer of Avery, 14, with the remarkable 29 pointer she shot last October on Bowie County. Scoring 239 2/8 net, the 5 1/2-year old buck was accepted into the Boone and Crockett Club’s all-time record book. (Courtesy Photo, Rickey Brewer)
• Brewer’s buck was recognized as the top free-ranging non-typical reported statewide to the Texas Big Game Awards program last season. (TBGA Graphic) COURTESY PHOTO / MATT WILLIAMS

Outdoors Writer

It’s official.

The enormous non-typical whitetail buck tagged last October in Bowie County by youth hunter Reili Brewer of Avery has been accepted for entry in the Boone and Crockett Club’s 32nd Big Game Awards book.

Based in Missoula, Montana, B&C is the most recognized records keeper of free ranging North American big game animals. Killing a buck that qualifies is a tall cotton accomplishment.

It takes a minimum net score of 195 inches using B&C’s scoring system to qualify for entry to the all-time record book in the non-typical category. B&C net scores take into consideration a lack of symmetry between the left and right antlers.

The Brewer buck crushed the minimum mark with gobs of room to spare.

Coming in with an official B&C score of 239 2/8 net after the mandatory 60-day drying period, the Pineywoods buck ranks as the top scoring low fence non-typical reported statewide to the Texas Big Game Awards Program during the 2023-24 hunting season.

TBGA lists the “green” scores at 2 39 5/8 net and 245 gross. Green scores are tallied using measurements taken before the 60-day drying period is complete.

The No. 2 TBGA non-typical in 2023-24 was shot in Zavala County in South Texas by Alejandro Bailleres. That deer nets 236 6/8.

Brewer’s buck also ranked among the best reported to B&C nationwide during the last two hunting seasons, according to Jennifer Schwab, the club’s assistant director of big game records.

Schwab says the buck is the 8th highest scoring non-typical whitetail reported by all hunters across the country during the organization’s current triennial awards period, which ends Dec. 31, 2024.

She added that Brewer will be invited to attend and bring her trophy to B&C’s Generation Next Youth Awards banquet in July 2025. The banquet will be held in conjunction with B&C’s 32nd Big Game Awards gathering at the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium in Springfield, Missouri.

The youth banquet is held every three years to honor hunters who were 16 or younger when they harvested a B&C record book animal, as well as parents and hunting mentors.

There’s plenty more that makes the Brewer buck even more remarkable.

A freshman at DeKalb High School, the lady hunter is only 14 years old. She was participating in the statewide Youth Only hunting weekend when she took the buck with a single shot from a Savage .350 Legend.

The story unfolded deep the heart of the Red River Army Depot, a 15,000-acre military installation near Texarkana. Her dad, Rickey, works there and gets to hunt on the property as a perk, as do military personnel, veterans, base employees, policemen, teachers and service officials. He had previously seen the buck twice and gathered multiple photos of the buck on game camera.

Brewer shot the 5 1/2-year-old buck on a chilly Sunday afternoon in the midst of a heavy downpour that had sent her dad scrambling for the pick-up 20 minutes earlier after he’d loaned her his foul weather gear. Daylight was waning when the big buck came calling and the youth hunter touched the trigger.

The rest is history. There is no official state record category for Texas bucks taken on open range by youth hunters. However, if there has been a larger one killed by a youngster, I am not aware of it.

Prior to the Brewer buck, the best buck reported by a youth hunter in Texas was the 24 pointer shot in 2017 in Washington County by another young lady, McKenzie Tieman of Brenham. Tieman’s buck ran up a net B&C score of 209 1/8. She was only nine years old and a third grader at Krause Elementary third grader at the time.

Prior to the Tiemann Buck, highest scoring Texas non-typical reported from open range by a youth hunter was the Makayla Hay Buck taken opening day of the 2012-13 season in Madison County. Hay’s 23-pointer nets 203 1/8.

Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by e-mail, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com.