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What a Difference a Year Can Make

What a Difference a Year Can Make

By Mike Handley

Fifty-four days after an open-mouthed Greg Tomlinson gawked at a buck his trail camera had photographed, he was aloft and testing his safety harness, squatting and leaning in order to find open air between his broadhead and the deer's vitals.

The veteran bowhunter pulled the photo on Sept. 21. Familiar with the 200-acre tract he'd hunted for 15 seasons, he's pretty sure the buck was a year-older version of one he saw on the hoof the previous fall, when it might've had a rack in the mid-130s. It had to be a 200-incher now, he thought.

Greg's time was limited during the early bow season in 2014, but he set aside three weeks of vacation to hunt the giant whitetail, starting the day before Halloween. He nicknamed it Dynamite because the rack exploded from one year to the next.

He says he hunted about 20 times from the property's eight stands before he struck out on Nov. 13. He arrived at his tree around 3:00 that cold afternoon, spooking several does en route.

"It was maybe 20 degrees with a slight north wind. But it was mostly sunny," he told Ed Waite, who measured the deer and wrote the story for Rack magazine. "Just a few minutes before 4:00, I heard noises like a deer coming toward me. I couldn't see anything, but I stood up anyway, just to be ready.

"A few seconds passed before I was able to locate it and see antlers. I knew immediately it was Dynamite," he said.

The buck was about 120 yards away, but approaching rapidly. Greg believes it was coming to harass the does he'd spooked earlier.

When it came within 30 yards, Greg threaded an arrow through a gap in the trees.

The 23-pointer was the first of several great bucks measured during the Monster Buck Classic in Topeka the following January. Its BTR composite score is 208 5/8 inches.

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