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Entries for 'Gray Loon'
When You're Trying to Sleep, and Your Brother Wakes You
By Mike Handley
Had it not been for her older brother Chase's coaxing, 12-year-old Brit Looney would've gladly let the curtain drop on Missouri's late-October youth season without firing a shot. Now the sixth-grader from Higginsville, Missouri, has one less bullet for her .243. "She didn't even want to go hunting that day," said 17-year-old Chase, who was too old ... READ MORE
Deer ... Buck ... Shooter
By Mike Handley
Twenty-six-year-old Ryan Keeter doesn't get many chances to bowhunt during harvest time. But the farmer from Grady, Arkansas, rarely misses opening day of rifle season. Ryan is a member of a hunting club in Lincoln County, and the property he hunts is a scant 20 minutes from his front door. Even so, he doesn't make the drive as often as he'd like t... READ MORE
Lesser Stand
By Mike Handley
When Jeremy Way found both sheds off the buck he'd been hunting for two years, he was thrilled to learn it had survived the 2014 season. But when the 32-year-old hunter didn't see the whitetail during the fall and winter of 2015, he was sure someone else had shot it. The only way Jeremy could deal with the loss was to imagine seeing the next best t... READ MORE
WMA Monster
By Mike Handley
One of the finest whitetails to fall in Oklahoma in 2016 came off land open to all. Ross Fenley, a 26-year-old mechanical engineer for International Paper Co., shot it while hunting with friends at the Three Rivers Wildlife Management Area. The hunter from Valliant, Oklahoma, has hunted there almost exclusively since he was 7 or 8 years old. Last O... READ MORE
Have Bucket, Will Travel
By Mike Handley
Four days into 2017, Leonard Jarrett decided to brave the below-freezing temperature in order to watch the midweek sunrise from a deer stand. Keenly aware that cold weather often keeps Alabama deer on their toes, regardless of the status of the rut, Leonard drove the 10 miles from his home in New Market, Alabama, and arrived at his homemade plywood... READ MORE
Quality Trumps Quantity
By Mike Handley
When Lane Lawrimore of Hartselle, Alabama, told his 17-year-old son, Will, they stood a better chance of shooting a big buck off their land in Lawrence County, he had no idea he would soon be able to say "I told you so." His youngest son wanted to spend the day after Thanksgiving hunting family land in Marion County, farther southwest, because they... READ MORE
Live and Rowdy Decoys
By Mike Handley
After 12 years of mainly collecting venison for the freezer, Jared Foster decided in 2016 to hold out for a buck worthy of the wall. It took the 34-year-old teacher and track coach eight weekends to do it. The father of two toddlers passed up a lot of bucks in the 120s and 130s during Missouri's bow season. He even let a 140-incher keep on trucking... READ MORE
New Alabama Record
By Mike Handley
Chad Morgan of Moulton, Alabama, has the luxury of rolling the dice whenever he gets the deer hunting jones. He either drives westward to his hunting club near Russellville, or he'll head to the much closer and sprawling Bankhead National Forest, which he's hunted for 13 years. The 36-year-old medical instrument machinist chose the latter on Tuesda... READ MORE
Counting Eggs
By Mike Handley
Counting unhatched chickens isn't always a bad thing. The moon, wind and the following day's weather forecast convinced Trent Siegle to take advantage of a temporary south breeze on Oct. 11, 2016, to check his trail cameras. An approaching front promised rain and cooler temperatures, and he deduced his favorite buck would be afoot. The images he co... READ MORE
Two Years from Poof to Pow
By Mike Handley
Blake Whelchel says the nearly 200-inch Oklahoma buck he shot in 2016 was between 20 and 30 inches bigger the previous year, and he has the trail camera photographs to prove it. Understandably, the 25-year-old from Ada, Oklahoma, was obsessed with the whitetail that was able to avoid him for three straight seasons. Their introduction came in Januar... READ MORE
When Only One Buck Will Do
By Mike Handley
Brady Jacques has spent most of his short bowhunting career in pursuit of the same whitetail. The 20-year-old Kansan will finally be looking for another one when the 2017 season opens. In 2013, the year after Brady began shooting a bow, he retrieved trail camera photographs of a 5x5 with tall brow tines. He says the buck was not incredible, by any ... READ MORE
Sweet Spot
By Mike Handley
Drew Miller always thought his odds of taking a giant whitetail were best on his 500-acre lease in Oklahoma, which is less than an hour's drive from his home in Paris, Texas. But that doesn't mean the 33-year-old owner of an oil change business doesn't hunt his side of the Texas state line. He also holds the deed to property south of Paris, adjacen... READ MORE
Mount Replacement Takes Six Years
By Mike Handley
Randy Hayes of Peterson, Alabama, never expected to take another whitetail to a taxidermist, not after a tornado gutted his home and carried 15 irreplaceable mounts to Oz in 2011. The 57-year-old, semi-retired welder now realizes he was too pessimistic. He's not sure which is more surprising, that he's springing for another glass-eyed memento, or t... READ MORE
Cheers
By Mike Handley
If Rocky Fahey hadn't stopped at a local watering hole in early November 2015, he might never have revisited the overgrown pasture he'd pretty much crossed off his list of deer hunting honey holes. Rocky ran into a friend inside the bar who swore he'd seen a huge irregular-racked buck on the property. The tale sounded exaggerated if not completely ... READ MORE
Nearly 30 Inches Wide
By Mike Handley
Probably the widest whitetail to come out of the 2016 season was arrowed in Darke County, Ohio, by a man who'd once given up hunting altogether. Gary Douglas of Greenville, Ohio, doesn't remember why he quit hunting in 1997, but he got back into it because of some venison sausage a friend provided. His kids adored it so much that they urged him to ... READ MORE