FREAK OF NATURE: A buck killed during the gun season in Oklahoma County is the talk of the deer hunting world

Brad Julian Jr. of Oklahoma City holds the European mount of the whitetail he shot near Jones during the gun season. The buck's score will be a world record for a 3 x 3 main frame. George Moore measures the antlers for Boone & Crockett while Brad Julian Jr. looks on. [PHOTOS BY ED GODFREY, THE OKLAHOMAN]

Boone and Crockett scorer George Moore was sitting at a table at the Backwoods Show last weekend, waiting for the next hunter to bring him a rack to measure, when he spotted Brad Julian Jr. walking down the aisle toward him.

“I didn't know what to think,” Moore said of the European mount that Julian was carrying. “I thought he was bringing us the head of a dinosaur.”

What the Oklahoma City resident was bringing to be scored was the rack of a massive whitetail that he shot during the deer gun season in far eastern Oklahoma County near Jones.

Since last weekend's Backwoods Show, photos of the rack have spread like wildfire on social media. It's the talk of the deer hunting world.

“This is a world-class deer, a 3 x 3 frame that scores this much,” Moore said.

In fact, the buck will be the biggest 3 x 3 ever listed in the Boone & Crockett record book once certified by the Montana organization.

Moore measured the buck at the Backwoods Show, but Boone & Crockett asked him to review it, so he measured it again Wednesday in an Edmond office.

The final result is the antlers grossed 223 inches and netted 216 1/8. It is not a state record, but with antlers as thick as an elk's, the buck may be the most unique ever killed in Oklahoma.

The European mount weighed 12 1/2 pounds and the main beams of the buck measured 29 inches each.

“Phenomenal,” Moore said. “I've scored somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 deer in my lifetime. No doubt this is the most unique deer I have ever scored.”

Julian, 36, a heating and air technician, shot the buck off a few acres of family land near Jones during the second weekend of the gun season.

Julian said he had photos of the buck for the past five years from his trail cameras, but wondered if he would ever get a chance to harvest it because it was so nocturnal.

“I knew he was special from the moment I saw him,” Julian said. “He's my dream.”

Hunting out of a pop-up blind on top of a camouflaged travel-trailer, Julian shot a buck that had been trailing a doe that morning.

He wasn't aware when he pulled the trigger on his 6.5 Creedmoor rifle that the buck was the same monster deer that had been eating his corn and food plots for the past five years.

“I shed a tear when I walked up on him and saw how massive he was,” Julian said. “He's a freak of nature.”

Julian started deer hunting five years ago. This is the first buck he has ever harvested. He has been told many times already that he will never get a better one.