|
|
Entries for 'Gray Loon'
The Turtle and the Unsmelling Buck
By Mike Handley
Unless they enjoy being human metronomes, deer hunters in Nebraska and Kansas - the two windiest states in the U.S. - do not scale skinny trees. Nor do they sit in elevated blinds or tripods, if the legs aren't sunken or staked into the ground. The wind must be relatively tame for Lonnie Hermann of McLouth, Kansas, to channel his inner squirrel. Th... READ MORE
Good Things Come
By Mike Handley
Ryan Slopko almost missed out on his 15 minutes of fame in 2014. If he hadn't passed up an 8-pointer on Oct. 22 that year, the Ohio teenager would never have seen the much larger whitetail in its wake. Ryan and his stepbrother, Danny, were bowhunting about 200 yards apart on their grandmother's Ross County farm that afternoon. Both were hoping for ... READ MORE
Thanks, Boss
By Mike Handley
After seeing a humongous buck while glassing a soybean field in July, Justin Mooney secured permission from his boss, who owns the adjacent 20-acre block, to hunt it. He wasted no time in creating a mineral lick, strapping a trail camera to a nearby tree and hanging a stand. When he returned to check the camera three weeks later, it held 967 photog... READ MORE
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 sea... READ MORE
Public Land via Boat
By Mike Handley
With a precious couple of inches separating the gunwales from the water, Troy Thomas was thinking he needed a bigger boat. That his buddies Matt Medley and Gerald McCumber had chosen to blaze a trail back to the truck rather than ride with Troy and his dead buck probably saved them all a drenching. If Troy had been using an outboard rather than a t... READ MORE
Doghouse Deer
By Mike Handley
Josh Baslee can tell you what the inside of a doghouse is like, and not because he's a nuisance animal control expert. The 39-year-old from Osawatomie, Kan., has been living in one for months, ducking the nails in the roof, ever since he tagged the buck his wife, Sandy, wanted to shoot. "I don't know if my first name is Josh anymore," he said, not ... READ MORE
By Any Other Name
By Mike Handley
It isn't uncommon for enormous bucks to gain nicknames, whether bestowed before or after they're dead. But they're usually named for a distinguishing characteristic of antler, some other physical trait, the person who shot them, or the land they once roamed. Few hunters haven't heard of the Hole in the Horn Buck, Ol' Mossy Horns, the Milo Hanson Bu... READ MORE
Virginia’s No. 2 Rifle Buck
By Mike Handley
Austin Sturgill and his family were certain the giant whitetail he shot on Thanksgiving morning - his second buck for 2011 - was the one that had set tongues wagging for weeks in that corner of Wise County, Virginia. "He got a big 10-pointer, the biggest one ever killed in the family to that date," said his father, Jimmy. "We were very happy and pr... READ MORE
Samaritan Continues to Reap Rewards
By Mike Handley
While hunting a decade ago, Brad Heuvelmann of Burlington, Iowa, ran into an older gentleman dragging a trophy buck over fresh snow. The man had shot the deer early that morning and had been struggling to get it to his truck. It was about lunchtime, and the man was only halfway to his vehicle. "I was happy to give him a hand, just for the opportuni... READ MORE
Grocery Shopping
By Mike Handley
When Glenda Holmes climbed into a 20-foot-high tripod before dawn on Dec. 13, 2013, she had on so many clothes that she could barely lift her arms and legs high enough to scale the rungs. A friend had given the woman from Manhattan, Kansas, permission to hunt from the deer stand in Riley County, and Glenda wasn't going to let the opportunity slide ... READ MORE
Unspeakably Big?
By Mike Handley
Louis Locke says he was on Cloud Nine after he shot a buck with a tremendous rack in November 2014. But he might've been even more excited than he admitted, according to his wife. "When he called, I couldn't understand a word he was saying," Karmen Locke said, adding that her husband was dropping consonants as if he were reciting the list of Hawaii... READ MORE
Bullet-worthy
By Mike Handley
Perry Richardson doesn't spend a lot on broadheads or bullets. He could easily punch his Kentucky buck tag every season, since the Meade County farm he hunts is crawling with whitetails. But the 29-year-old generally holds out for really good ones. Perry says being picky means he might go two or three seasons between deer, though that wasn't the ca... READ MORE
Shooting is Often the Easy Part
By Mike Handley
There was no sliding, at first. With every heave-ho, the dead buck's considerable front end seemed fused to the tailgate, and the brothers Swinford felt as if they'd bitten off more than they could possibly chew. Rob was the heaver, on the ground with the bulk of the deer his older brother had shot. Richard, hoing from the truck's bed, had the buck... READ MORE
Not the 5x5 He Expected
By Mike Handley
Steven Lynn of Junction City, Kentucky, spends more time harvesting beans and cutting hay than he sets aside for hunting whitetails. I'm not sure how the 33-year-old farmer fared with the former in 2014, but he sure collected a bumper crop of antlers. Steven didn't know that when he squeezed the trigger, however. He thought he'd shot the big 10-poi... READ MORE
Don’t Beg This Guy to Play Poker with You
By Mike Handley
Three days before Oklahoma's 2014 bow season opened, Joel Clark called his friend, Eric Rosser, to see if he wanted to join a hunting lease. Eric declined, at first, because he'd just chipped in on another lease in the western part of the state. But Joel was persistent. Having a place to hunt in Lincoln County, within an hour of his home, was what ... READ MORE