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Entries for 'Gray Loon'
Mistaken Identity
By Mike Handley
Corey Bacon is usually pretty good at judging bucks by their cover, but he was dead wrong last year. The 28-year-old from Lebo, Kansas, mistakenly thought he’d shot a 160-inch 8-pointer on Dec. 8, 2018, the No. 2 deer on that season’s wish list. He didn’t see the kickers or the little drop tines it wore until he reached the downed... READ MORE
Trading Camo for Orange
By Mike Handley
If I wait more than four days to pull the memory card from my backyard trail camera during the redwing blackbird migration, I’ll have to sift between 3,000 and 4,000 mostly identical images. The numbers are so overwhelming that I wind up trashing far more than I keep. Cameran Derefield is not as easily overwhelmed. The 27-year-old electrical ... READ MORE
Three-stanza Limerick
By Mike Handley
The script for Corey Chitwood’s hunt for a nearly 200-inch whitetail could have been written in the form of a limerick. There was a young man from Kentucky, who began his season unlucky. He went out with a bow, was beset by a doe, and his world became far less bucky. He returned to his blind with a crossbow, the weapon du jour from which bolt... READ MORE
Long Time Coming
By Mike Handley
Told by everyone the nearly 194-inch buck he arrowed last season was a record book specimen, Edward Walters contacted the Pope and Young Club seeking to have his deer measured. He was surprised and saddened to learn they don’t accept bucks taken with a crossbow. The Boone and Crockett Club does, he learned, but they told him the non-typical d... READ MORE
Better than Splotches
By Mike Handley
When Bryan LeVan left work at 3:30 on Nov. 5, 2018, his destination was the 180-acre tract he’s deer hunted for two decades. The highway worker from West Liberty, Ohio, was hoping to see the piebald buck that had been on his radar for two seasons. He hadn’t been able to set out trail cameras that year, so he had no idea what else might ... READ MORE
Two Deer, One World-class Rack
By Mike Handley
While most hunters might choose to let a stand rest between bloodlettings, Dylan McGee opted to spend the afternoon of Nov. 3, 2018, in the very stand from which he’d arrowed a doe that morning. The Mason, Illinois, archer has hunted the same 300-acre private tract for six years. His favorite ambush point is an 80-yard-long finger of woods ex... READ MORE
Whack-a-Deer
By Mike Handley
For Derrick Blakeley, choosing where on the family’s third-generation farm to usher in Kentucky’s 2018 rifle season was easy. He went to the clover and turnip plot where he’d spotted a monstrous 10-pointer a week earlier. The particular homemade stand had been there for a long time. “The food plot I was hunting is shaped li... READ MORE
In Lieu of Breakfast
By Mike Handley
For Bo Ezell, skipping breakfast to go squirrel hunting is a no-brainer. Swapping a fork for a deer rifle, however, is a tough call. The 13-year-old was staying with his grandparents last December when forced to choose between staying indoors and eating and accompanying a neighbor who’d reported seeing a really big buck in her pasture. He rel... READ MORE
Squirrel, Squirrel, Deer
By Mike Handley
Austin Gaines learned an important lesson last deer season: Never assume the thing you heard is the same thing you heard before that. The 24-year-old diesel mechanic from Gallipolis, Ohio, is fanatical about stocking his freezer with venison, so he was thrilled beyond measure when a buddy helped him gain access to a nearly 700-acre, deer-rich farm ... READ MORE
Ghostbusting, Ohio Style
By Mike Handley
The first time Daniel Stutler retrieved trail camera photographs of the monstrous whitetail he would later nickname The Ghost, he’d already tagged out for 2017. The slack-jawed bowhunter from Ostrander, Ohio, was smitten from the get-go, and he was determined to keep tabs on the giant roaming his girlfriend’s family land in Delaware Cou... READ MORE
Delta Double
By Mike Handley
The flat Mississippi Delta yields more than bumper crops of cotton, corn and soybeans. The fertile region is also known for its beefy, top-heavy whitetails. Few places in the Deep South produce deer that can rival those found in the block of counties within an hour’s drive of the Mississippi River. Heath Hodges knows this. The 38-year-old bui... READ MORE
South’s Finest Typical
By Mike Handley
Of the top 100 Typicals listed in Buckmasters Whitetail Trophy Records, only five came out of the Deep South. The majority are Midwestern or Canadian bucks. Three of the five Southern whitetails – the largest – drew breath in Arkansas, while the others were shot in Kentucky. Because BTR rankings are based solely on inches of antler (not... READ MORE
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 ... READ MORE
Wrong Place is the Right Place
By Mike Handley
Daniel Montgomery wasn’t supposed to be in the ladder stand he climbed on the second afternoon of Indiana’s 2018 firearms season. He’d planned to hunt from another on the same Posey County tract, where he’d seen at least 20 deer on opening day. The retired sheriff gave up that spot, however, when another of the landowner's g... READ MORE
Curtain Falls, Despite Curtain
By Mike Handley
Bowhunting from ground blinds with curtains has one drawback: Curtains. True, many homemade blinds don’t have them, or the windows might have sliding doors or Plexiglas. And some of the store-bought models have “shoot-through” mesh. Wade Johnson’s blind has regular, thicker-weave mesh over the openings, material that has to ... READ MORE