Vintage Texas buck photo from 1987. (Photo courtesy of Stuart West Stedman)
April 29, 2024
By Haynes Shelton
Step with me into the Whitetail Time Machine , and let’s travel back to the good ole days of deer hunting! Once a week for the remainder of 2024, the North American Whitetail edit staff is excited to publish a new batch of photos submitted by fans and readers of the magazine throughout the 1980s and 90s, all of which we found stowed away in a huge box that’d been tucked in a corner of our office in Kennesaw, Georgia, prior to its closing.
These photos came to us from hunters across the continent. And trust us when we say they’re “old school” cool. You’ll see everything from vintage camo patterns, classic pickup trucks, retro hairstyles, hunting bows and guns from yesteryear... and of course, big whitetail bucks!
This week, we rewind the clock back to 1987 in Dimmit County, Texas. The letter came addressed to NAW’s office sent from the Wesley West Cattle Company, out of Houston. The hunter you see in the attached photo is grasping onto an absolute giant South Texas whitetail, scoring 185 inches non-typical. The happy whitetailer is clad in a vintage “Fred Bear camo” shirt, with a Vietnam-era Tiger Stripe ball cap and woodland brush chaps. Check it out!
An Evening in the Tripod “Stuart West Stedman shot this 185-point atypical (approximate) buck in Dimmit County, Texas, on November 21, 1987. It came within 35 yards of my tripod stand about five minutes after the evening sun hit the horizon. The buck field dressed 144 pounds.”
Send Us Your Photo! Have a vintage whitetail picture you’d like to see featured in Whitetail Time Machine? Email us a clear scan of the image and information about the deer, at: whitetail@outdoorsg.com