TSJ Feature: Sharps Shooter

Gibson goes "old school" to take trophy Rolling Plains whitetail. -photos by Wyman Meinzer

Mike Gibson is a history buff who can quote, chapter and verse, the progress lubricated by blood, sweat and tears of early settlers tough enough to scratch out a living on the Texas plains. He’s so reverent of the people who came before him in this sometimes harsh land that he started hunting 25 years ago with an open sights reproduction Shiloh Sharps Buffalo rifle.

In all likelihood, an early frontiersman used just such a rifle to kill a whitetail buck bigger than the one Gibson shot in 2009. If a bigger Texas deer was ever killed with a Sharps, it was a long, long time ago, when deer hunting was a subsistence game and the names Boone and Crockett still belonged to legendary pioneers and not to a big game records club.

Gibson’s Cottle County 20-pointer grossed 212 1/8 B&C points and netted 206 in the Texas Big Game Awards (TBGA). He shot the deer on a working cattle ranch that’s been in his family since 1972. There are no deer blinds and no barrier fences that slow the progress of any animals other than livestock. Gibson has never intentionally fed the deer. They eat natural forage and wheat that’s intended for cattle. There is one corn feeder near the headquarters, but it’s not there for hunting purposes—only to keep a few deer around for entertainment.

Gibson, like his father before him, manages the 6666 Ranch at Guthrie. He also runs cattle on his own spread and epitomizes the modern day romantic notion of a working cowboy. He’s a passionate hunter and keen observer of wildlife.