Going down the Highway with a Big Buck

Obnoxious or practical?

On the last day of 2015, a reporter took a photo of a large buck hanging vertically on the front of a Jeep while being driven down I-10 in Texas. After the photo gained traction on the Seguin Gazette’s Facebook page, the hunter who shot the buck came forward to talk about it.

Full disclosure: The first time I saw this photo, I thought, “How obnoxious.” But then I read about it.

Hunter Bobby Wuest is 70 years old and said he had a tough time trying to lift 200 pounds of dead weight–and that’s how much he said this gutted buck weighed. So he used a rig that he and a friend created, which uses a vertical stand, pulleys, and the electric winch on the front of his Jeep.

“I’m very active, but picking up a 200-pound buck is pretty hard,’ Wuest said. ‘He and I came up with this idea; it’s… basically an electric winch hooked up to the battery. It has pulleys on top, so I can pull up to 2,500 pounds.”

So, well, I feel a little better about it after learning the details, but it still seems like showing off–especially during a 160-mile highway drive.

But it seems like lots of folks enjoyed seeing Bobby’s buck:

“I get a lot of thumbs up and perfect hand gestures, and people take pictures of it one after another. I got a lot of positive feedback from people.”

Reactions on the Gazette’s Facebook page were mixed, with some folks believing the hunter should “quarter that animal and put it in an ice chest next time,” and others agreeing that “he doesn’t have a truck [to] haul it in so he did what he had to do.”

What do you think?

Story by Russ Chastain