Big Buck 411 Blog

Second Chance

Second Chance

By Mike Handley

Bowhunting’s newest world record was not as smart as Pavlov’s dogs.

Barb Severson of Rice Lake, Wisconsin, shot the deer – the largest ever arrowed by a woman – during a hunt in Clay County, Kansas, last year. She and her husband, Jeff, have been making the pilgrimage for nearly two decades.

The 2018 season wasn’t the first time Barb found herself looking at the handsome specimen through a peep sight. She shot the deer in November 2014 as well. That was the first year the then 180-incher appeared on their trail cameras.

“As the animal ran away, I could see my glowing nock and about 6 inches of arrow protruding,” she said. “I thought, for sure, I had killed that buck.”

Sign was sparse, however, and exhaustive searches were fruitless. Barb was sick until, 24 hours later, the very-much-alive whitetail was photographed by another trail cam.

They didn’t see the buck again that season. There were a few cam photos in 2015 and 2016, but nothing in 2017. Understandably, they thought the deer was dead until they pulled their cameras for the return trip to Wisconsin.

The cache of images included eight photos of the AWOL buck near the stand from which Barb had shot it three years earlier.

While scouting a couple of days before the 2018 season opened, Barb glimpsed an enormous deer.

The first four days of her hunt, she saw nothing special. Special came about 10 minutes after 5:00 on the afternoon of Nov. 5.

She heard the deer coming. And when it grunted, she knew it was a buck.

When it walked into view, Barb could hear her heartbeat.

“It was almost like being inside a drum as someone rapidly pounds on it,” she remembered. “I knew right away it was a world-class deer.”

After she loosed her arrow, Barb began shaking uncontrollably. It took her several minutes to type and send a text to Jeff and their nephew, Shane, who joined her for the recovery.

The incredible rack scores 229 inches on the BTR scale, surpassing the previous No. 1 Deb Luzinski Buck. It’s also the second world record to hang in the Severson home.

Husband Jeff’s best Kansas buck earned the BTR’s Golden Laurel Citation in 2005. At 236 2/8 inches, it’s still the world-record Semi-irregular in our compound bow category.

— Read Recent Blog! Wrong Place is the Right Place: Daniel Montgomery wasn’t supposed to be in the ladder stand he climbed on the second afternoon of Indiana’s 2018 firearms season.

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