Article written by Big Deer Field Reporter Dean Weimer:

Thirteen-year-old Cayden Miller grew up on his grandparents’ 17-acre farm with his mother, Mary Jo, a few miles northeast of Shipshewana, Indiana. Cayden’s Grandpa, Ray, has been a hunter since his youth and he’s instilled in his grandson a love for the outdoors.

Unfortunately, Cayden’s mother passed away on Thanksgiving morning 2020, so the fall can be a trying time of year for Cayden. But luckily for him deer hunting season offers up plenty of joy to get his mind off things. Fortunately for Cayden and Grandpa Ray a fantastic buck, nicknamed “Beamer,” had been living in and around their small farm for the last few years. And each year, thanks to good management and a nearby sanctuary, the deer grew more impressive with each passing season.

Just east of Ray’s property was an 80-acre agricultural field that was planted in soybeans in the Spring of ‘24. The Millers had permission to hunt this property and an adjoining 40-acre swamp to the south; but they didn’t have permission to hunt a 40-acre property that acted as Beamer’s core area adjacent to the soybean field. It was a typical good news/bad news situation. The farmer had set up this special parcel as a wildlife sanctuary back around 2012, and it didn’t take long before the mature bucks in the area noticed. If Beamer stayed in there, he was safe. That was the bad news, but the good news is that sanctuaries such as this are the reason why some bucks can reach their true potential.

Grandpa Ray and his brother– along with a few other neighbors– had been managing the area to produce bigger bucks for the past several years.  The results were impressive: Several really good bucks had been taken in the immediate area in recent years including one buck measuring over 170; two over 160; and several 140-150-class bucks. As is so often the case, all that most whitetail bucks need to grow large racks anywhere is age. Indiana has the soils and food sources to produce giant whitetails. All Beamer needed was some time to reach his potential, and that is precisely what happened.

As a 2.5-year-old Beamer sported a clean 5×5 rack showing major promise. The next year he blossomed into a perfect 6×6. As mature bucks often do, he absolutely blew up in his fourth growing season into a more massive version of his three-year-old self, also gaining a few sticker points.

During November 2022 Beamer lost the whole left side of his rack–presumably in a fight with another buck–so the Millers granted him his walking papers. During the 2023-24 season, Beamer, now a 5.5-year-old and even bigger than the previous year, and once again made it through the season unscathed.

During the spring and summer of 2024, the brute had grown even bigger. He now sported a massive, wide 6×7 mainframe with 5 additional non-typical tines. He was now a 6.5-year-old colossus, and word about him began to permeate through the area’s deer hunting community.

Neighbors had also been getting pictures of the bruiser on their trail cameras, but most people were keeping tight-lipped about him, for obvious reasons.

As the Fall of 2024 approached the Millers–and several other neighboring hunters—anticipated getting a shot at the local legend. Ray and Cayden both got glimpses of Beamer during the earlier archery season, but neither had any close encounters with him.

Then one night during early November a passerby took a Snapchat video of Beamer with his cell phone along one of the local roads. Ray’s nephew, Aaron, received the snap and sent a still of it to Ray on November 15. Aaron lives fairly close to the sanctuary and recognized which road the video was from. This made the Millers even more nervous as yet more individuals knew of Beamer’s existence and general whereabouts.

Indiana’s mid-November firearms season was due to open on November 16th last year.  They were a bit worried that the buck would wander off during the rut and get killed by someone else. But hopefully he would stay in his core area where he spent most of his daylight hours.

They both went hunting on the firearms opener with no sighting of Beamer. On Monday the 18th Cayden wasn’t really sure if he wanted to hunt. He recalls, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to go hunting, or not. It was dreary and rainy and I wasn’t having a good day, but at 4:30 p.m. Grandpa told me to just go anyway. We usually hunt in the same blind, but I told him that I would be o.k. by myself, so he was in another blind on the farm not far away.” The blind Cayden sat in was situated on the Miller’s land about 60 yards south of the sanctuary on the edge of the bean stubble field.

It wouldn’t take long for Cayden to see action. “I hadn’t been in the blind even 30 minutes when I saw a doe enter the field,” he remembers. Cayden readied his 6.5 Creedmoor when more movement caught his eye.  Although it was gray and dark out Cayden could see those giant antlers and knew it was Beamer.

“I took careful aim and pulled the trigger”, he said. “Everything happened so fast, I didn’t even get buck fever, but I did shake after the shot! I quickly called (my) Grandma, Marlene, and told her I shot at Beamer and I’m pretty sure I made a good shot. By then Grandpa was calling me asking if I got him, and if I was sure it was Beamer; and if he was down.”

After Grandpa Ray arrived, they took up the track immediately. Ray was initially worried as they didn’t find any blood. Cayden told Ray that Just before he went out of his sight, he said that the buck slowed down .and moved his tail side to side and looked like he almost fell. As it turned out Beamer ran about 200 yards in the bean field then expired in some tall grass on the edge of the field.

The Miller Buck is an incredible animal that sports one of those rare, unique racks that makes the all-time Boone and Crockett record book as a typical, or a non-typical. Generally, such bucks have plenty of typical growth and just enough non-typical growth that drops the typical score down just slightly enough that it can still net as a typical. The buck grosses a whopping 190 6/8” on the typical 6X7 frame which obviously puts it in an elite status. After subtracting side-to-side differences, and also then subtracting the 14 ⅛” of non-typical growth, the buck would net 170 6/8” as a typical. The Millers, however, opted to enter it as a non-typical with a final net score of 199 0/8”.–D.W.