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Handlebars

Handlebars

By Mike Handley

Three times in 2017, windows of opportunity slammed shut before Randall Oliver could even attempt shooting at the drop-tined buck he desperately wanted.

He had much better luck in 2018, however, and he didn’t have to give away his eyeteeth.

The 52-year-old heavy equipment operator has prowled the same land in Miami County, Kansas, since 2000, the year a buddy talked him into coming out of deer hunting retirement. He’d lost all interest in the sport for almost a decade.

When the 2018 season opened, his pump was primed. He was dying for a chance at the deer that had thrice given him the slip the previous year.

On a cloudy, 60-degree Halloween evening, he chose the lower of two ridge stands, which was best suited for a north wind. He was in the mail-order perch, 15 feet high, just after 5 p.m.

Randall used his grunt call at 5:50. Thirteen minutes later, he blew it a couple of more times. And 15 minutes after that, he gave a long and a short grunt.

At 6:29, he heard footfalls in the dry leaves carpeting the ground.

“It sounded like it was 20 or 25 yards away,” he said, “but I could not see anything for about three minutes. I thought, Is this a possum?”

Eventually, he could see a deer through breaks in the limb canopy, also a yellowish glint of antler, as it approached.

“I was really shocked. I couldn’t believe a deer had snuck in so close. It wasn’t dusk yet, and I somehow didn’t see it coming down the hill,” he said.

Randall rested his crossbow on a shooting stick and waited, watching the deer through his non-illuminated scope. He soon noticed one of the drop tines and knew which deer was coming to the grassy clearing.

When the animal with handlebars hit the top of a hill 40 yards away, it turned east and passed within 17 easy yards of the determined hunter.

Three minutes after he’d first spotted the deer, Randall squeezed the trigger and sent the bolt on its way. Unlike his legs as he was getting down, the arrow didn’t wobble.

Randall’s career-best whitetail hasn’t been taped for the BTR yet, but the antlers have been rough-scored at 227 inches.

— Read Recent Blog! Forked Eyeguards, Plural: Hunter: Scott Meyer | Scott’s deer is among the finest to come out of the Show Me State in 2018.

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