Was Mixon's 1972 buck the largest ever killed in Wilcox County?

Gene Tuney Mixon of Old Texas

Hunters have harvested many large deer over the years in Wilcox County, and while the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources doesn’t keep official records on whitetail deer, a deer killed in 1972 would surely be in the conversation.

According to published reports at the time, 44-year-old Gene Tuney Mixon of Old Texas killed a monster buck with an “unbelievable 39-point rack” on Jan. 11, 1972. This free-range buck weighed 247 pounds and was described as a “hunter’s dream come true.”

Accounts differ as to exactly where this deer was killed. Some reports say that it was killed in northern Monroe County, but many others, including some of his relatives, say that Mixon actually killed the deer in Wilcox County.

Unfortunately, Mixon is no longer around to settle the debate. He passed away at the age of 77 in 2005 and was laid to rest in the Asbury Methodist Church Cemetery in Conecuh County.

With that said, Mixon’s 1972 deer leaves us with a lot of questions. Where was it actually killed? What type of gun was he using? Was he hunting from a deer stand or shooting house? Have even larger deer been killed in Wilcox County before or after Mixon’s deer? Who killed them and how big were they?

As best that I could determine, the world record for a whitetail deer belongs to Stephen Tucker of Tennessee, who bagged a 47-point buck on Nov. 7, 2016. Notably, Tucker, who was 27 years old at the time, killed this large deer with a muzzleloader. After a 60-day drying-out period for the antlers, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency declared the deer to be a record-setting buck in January 2017.

The largest deer rack ever recorded was a 44-point rack belonging to a deer nicknamed the “Missouri Monarch.” Oddly, hunters in 1981 found this deer already dead. Described as a “one in a million” animal, it was determined that this giant deer died of natural causes. It’s considered a larger buck than Tucker’s because it scored higher on the Boone & Crockett Club measuring scale.

One thing that is for sure is that Wilcox County does find itself in the record books when it comes to other members of the animal kingdom. Most notably is the famous “Stokes Alligator,” which Safari Club International declared a world record in 2014.

This enormous alligator was killed on the Alabama River by a team led by Mandy Stokes of Thomaston on Aug. 16, 2014. The “Stokes Alligator” was 15 feet, nine inches long and tipped the scales at 1,011.5 pounds. It was 13 inches longer than the previous world record holder, which was killed in Texas in 2007.

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience with more information about the deer Mixon killed in 1972. Also, if you know of a larger deer killed before or since, please let me hear about it. It would be interesting to know if Mixon’s deer was the largest ever killed in Wilcox County. After all, it would give the rest of us poor, luckless hunters something to shoot for, literally.