Board members of the Wisconsin Buck & Bear Club (WBBC) are set to meet on Monday to discuss their recent scoring and acceptance of a 49-point buck recently registered with the club as a fair-chase kill.
The WBBC board will meet in light of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources decision to investigate the legitimacy of the deer, which was registered as a wild kill taken in Marquette County by a muzzleloader hunter last December.
The jaw-dropping 316-inch nontypical buck displayed at this year’s annual Wisconsin deer and turkey expo reportedly came from one of the state’s most heavily hunted counties.
The giant nontypical was entered and accepted into the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club for its all-time listing compilation. If ratified by the WBBC, it would easily shatter the state record for a nontypical, free-ranging whitetail.
Marquette County trails only Marathon, Waupaca, Vernon and Shawano when it comes to annual deer harvest. Each of those counties, and Clark, consistently post deer harvests between 5,000 and 7,000 animals annually. There are 72 counties in Wisconsin, and state hunters bag more than 320,000 deer annually.
According to sources close to the situation, the 49-pointer was registered by a Marquette County resident who did not provide any trail camera images of the deer.
“Supposedly none of the neighbors knew the deer existed,” the source said. “Although one supposedly said he might have seen it across a 40-acre field during the late summer. That neighbor reportedly saw a ‘big buck with a really white rack,’ (last year)” the source said.
The 49-pointer was reported as a December muzzleloading kill. Marquette County had the third-most muzzleloading hunters in the state in 2024, just behind Marathon and Shawano counties. The 49-pointer was one of 90 antlered bucks from Marquette County registered with the DNR.
According to the Marquette County Visitor Bureau, a total of 6,422 deer were harvested in Marquette County in 2023. Thirty percent of the total was harvested by Marquette County residents. Marquette County is home to about 16,000 residents.
The county’s landscape features interspersed farm country with some marsh areas and woodlots.
Members of the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club’s board of directors are expected to meet Monday, April 14, to discuss the 49-point buck entry.
Efforts to contact the hunter have been unsuccessful. D&DH will continue to update this news story as more information becomes available.
Read more details on this story:
- 2 Wisconsin Bucks Look Strikingly Similar
- 49-Point Buck Was Submitted as Fair Chase Kill
- Hunter Provided Location for Giant 49-Pointer
