Mike Campbell and his deer hunting family had seen the monstrous buck on their trail camera photos many times, a 17-point giant that had roamed their land for years.

Nicknamed “Rocky Top” by the family, the big buck showed up on camera photos here and there. He obviously was the ruler of the roost in the area. And despite never appearing during daylight hours, the buck made a mistake Dec. 22 when Campbell finally laid eyes on him during a hunt.

“We’ve all been hunting this buck for years and I got him. We always talk about who was gonna kill Rocky Top for the past two seasons,” Campbell told Mississippi Sportsman. “My oldest daughter and my two sons, we’ve been after him a while, and ol’ Dad got him.”

“I think we’ve all got hundreds of photos of Rocky Top but we never saw him, not once the whole time. I wanted to get him with my bow, and never did, and so did my two sons. I wished we had, but this is good, too. Any way you can get the buck of a lifetime, and this one is certainly that, is good enough.”

Campbell works with timber and Bad Boy Buggies in Grenada County, in the central part of the state. The giant buck has been scored unofficially by three people and the green score ranges from 188 to 192 inches. It’s a 10-point with several scorable smaller points.

The buck was following a doe in the river bottoms where the family hunts. Campbell heard a splash, got a glimpse of the buck, and made a roughly 50-yard shot with his .30-06 rifle. Ol’ Rocky Top will forever be remembered as the big Christmas buck.

Check out the full story here at Mississippi Sportsman.