B&C World's Record - Typical Sitka Blacktail

For more than 20 years Peter Bond didn't realize the World's Record typical Sitka blacktail deer was hanging on a wall in his shop. 

Bob Graham was visiting a shop in British Columbia, Canada, when he spotted an impressive Sitka blacktail deer (Odocoileus hemionus sitkensis) mount. Graham offered to buy the rack, but the owner, Peter Bond, refused to sell. Hearing this conversation, Bond’s son wondered what the story was behind the mount. After all, his father was a meat hunter, not a trophy hunter. The time had arrived, he decided, for his father to recount the memorable evening of September 10, 1970.

“Graham Island, in the Queen Charlotte Island’s (now called Haida Gwaii), is the land of plenty for lovers of seafood and wild game," Peter Bond said. "In the 1960s, a boat came once a week in good weather with our Woodwords Food or Sears order, and the mail. The only meat to be purchased was frozen New Zealand beef at a great cost, so we lived off the land. The blacktail deer had no predators except the occasional black bear and man. We were permitted to take 10 deer each year since the deer were small—40 to 50 pounds dressed.

"On one hunt," Bond said, "I was by myself, on my way into camp one evening, when I spotted several deer. Because they were 600 yards away on a spur road I decided to walk closer to get a good shot. When I closed to within 350 yards a couple of does got nervous, so I decided I had to shoot from there. As I put my trusty Weatherby 3x7 scope on each deer, looking for a buck, I ran into the biggest rack I had ever seen on the island.

“At first I thought it was a deer looking at me through a bush," Bond said. "I studied the buck for a while and when his head moved, looking away from me, I realized what I was looking at was all antler. I was still confused because the buck’s body appeared too small for that rack size. All I could see was the buck's head and the top of its back. For a moment i thought the buck was standing behind an old windfall or a dip in the ground. As I don't like to chase a wounded animal, I leveled my .300 Weatherby on the top of his neck, just behind his rack, and let go with a 120-grain bullet.

“The buck instantly disappeared from sight, but I was sure he was hit," Bond said. "I climbed up the hill to find my buck had dropped where he stood. To my surprise it was a very large buck, the largest I had seen on the Charlottes. The buck dressed out at 110 pounds. Also, to my surprise, he had been lying down. That was why his body looked so small.”

Bond never had a buck mounted, but he made an exception with this one. Only many years later did he realize that the buck hanging on his wall was the world's record Sitka blacktail. The Boone & Crockett Club recognized this buck with a Certificate of Merit at the 23rd Awards Program in Reno, Nevada.