Big Buck 411 Blog

‘Desperation Move’

‘Desperation Move’

By Mike Handley

Before Kenny Grant took up bowhunting in 2012, he put little faith in plastic things that go urrrp or mehhh. After all, riflemen don't generally need to coax too-far whitetails to come closer.

Had it not been for one of the little plastic calls, however, he might still be daydreaming about the 200-plus-incher he set out to arrow in 2013.

Kenny gave up deer hunting 13 years ago, following a divorce. He got custody of his now college-age children, and he simply had no time for it.

When he decided to return to the sport, he decided not to travel and hunt like he used to do, but to stay closer to home. That decision was made easier when the state of Texas re-opened Collin County to deer hunting (an archery-only season).

Kenny and a friend secured a 1,000-acre lease and saw a buck in 2012 that had lost one side of its rack. The remaining antler was at least 100 inches all by itself, and they hoped it would survive.

One of the bucks the guys came to know somehow lost the right side of its rack, but the remaining left side was incredible. And that's the buck Kenny wanted most of all when the calendar flipped.

Kenny was thrilled when the deer began appearing on trail cameras in the fall of 2013. A week before he set out to hunt it, the almost exclusively nocturnal buck was photographed during the daytime.

On Sunday morning, Dec. 29, Kenny climbed into a stand where it had been photographed. At 8:00, he spotted the familiar buck chasing a doe about 80 yards distant. It disappeared almost immediately, but it came back.

It was too close and too quick for Kenny to even draw his bow. And when it disappeared over a knoll, the exasperated hunter threw out a couple of grunts, which caused it to reappear a few seconds later.

"That was my desperation move," he admitted.

When it hit the 22-yard mark, Kenny released the first arrow he's ever loosed at a live buck.

The gnarly 21-pointer is No. 3 among the Lone Star State's irregular bowkills and the 11th largest Irregular overall there (among free-roaming deer). Its BTR composite score is 219 7/8 inches.

You can read more about it in the Winter issue of Rack magazine.

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Send your 2014 big buck photos to mhandley@buckmasters.com. Please include hunter’s name, where the animal was hunted, and its score (if known). Remember: The BTR has no drying period.

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