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Entries for 'Gray Loon'
On Top of the World, at Age 10
By Mike Handley
How many 10-year-olds manage to tick off two bucket-list items in a span of one second? Ella Perkins did it — taking her first buck AND breaking the 200-inch mark — while hunting with her dad, Cody, last September. Cody says the whitetail they’d nicknamed Big Boy was bedding on the adjacent property, near a lake that serves as the... READ MORE
Kansas Yields 235-incher
By Mike Handley
Big-woods bowhunters would drive past the land Jon Landwehr hunts near Russell, Kansas. The agricultural tracts are mostly treeless, which might be ok if you’re packing a rifle, but a bit like throwing a dart at a board if you’re hoping to pick a bow-friendly vantage point. Deer rarely wander willy-nilly through a sea of milo. They trav... READ MORE
The Canoe Buck
By Mike Handley
An awful lot of big buck photos have been shared on social media in the last couple of weeks, and a surprising number of them have been monstrous Typicals. Among those pushing or exceeding the 200-inch mark was a Wisconsin buck taken by Kevin Christorf. Several photos of the outstanding 6x7 have been shared, but one taken by a neighbor who helped K... READ MORE
Friends with Benefits, Kentucky-style
By Mike Handley
Brian Owens’ head was nodding up and down even before he could say yes to a coworker’s invitation to hunt in 2020. Three-hour drive? No problem. Brian and Justin Garland work at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in La Grange, Kentucky. For them, Whitley County represented proverbial greener pastures. The guys began scouting the ne... READ MORE
Long Poke
By Mike Handley
Only minutes before shooting one of the most impressive whitetails to come out of Kansas in 2019, 11-year-old Cayden Harris was fast asleep. The road-weary kid from Bonifay, Florida, was hunting with his father, Corky, on Dec. 4, the day they arrived. The Harrises, along with a friend, had driven 19 hours straight to reach the Land of Giants. A fri... READ MORE
Remember: Breathing is More Important than Looking
By Mike Handley
Never underestimate a 21-year-old college student’s willpower. Clay Craft’s choo choo might’ve jumped the track before and after his encounter with a giant whitetail a couple of months ago, but he somehow found the rails just long enough to end his season three days out of the gate. Clay was hunting his family’s 115 acres in... READ MORE
Weak in Body, but Not in Spirit
By Mike Handley
Ohio’s 2021 bow season opened three days after Derek Walker found out he had COVID-19. Had his cell phone not revealed daytime images of the buck to which he’d already devoted two seasons, he might have stayed home with the rest of the quarantined family. Spending time in a treestand would be isolation enough, he decided. It couldn't ma... READ MORE
Growth Spurt
By Mike Handley
It's ok to call this Georgia buck ugly, but who wouldn't like to take it on a date with a taxidermist? Benny Overholt admits he was wrong when he said the homely deer his trail cameras photographed in 2019 wouldn't amount to much. The animal's rack remained clad in velvet well into December that year, but it still shed its antlers. Benny found both... READ MORE
Vermont's New No. 1 Perfect
By Mike Handley
Studiers of hunters' heartbeats say the physical exertion required to drag a dead deer out of the woods could result in a heart attack, meaning 51-year-old Greg Jenne must be in pretty good shape. The hunter from Bridgewater Corners, Vermont, gave his ticker quite a workout last November. Shooting a new state record was relatively easy. Dragging it... READ MORE
The Giant That Ran Into a Bullet
By Mike Handley
If 14-year-old Kellen Luse can handle a shotgun as well as he shoots his grandfather's 20-year-old rifle, and if he's so inclined, then a box of shells is good for 24 or 25 birds. But wingshooting isn't what will land him in the pages of Rack magazine. Last Nov. 13, opening day of Indiana's gun season, the teenager from Bloomfield toppled a buck ru... READ MORE
Best Unlaid Plans
By Mike Handley
Sometimes, the best plan is having no plan. That sums up Trenton Doyle's success in Missouri last fall, when the 30-year-old gas pipeline welder from Lamar decided to give his little brother the best vantage point while he ventured into uncharted territory. Trenton had only recently gained hunting rights to the property owned by his wife's family. ... READ MORE
Virginia’s No. 2 Shotgun Buck
By Mike Handley
Brent Boney knows what it’s like to be dismissed by friends. In January 2016, the hunter from Drewryville, Virginia, saw and missed a whitetail so fantastical that other members of the Round Hill Hunting Club were convinced he was exaggerating. He was not. His encounter came during a dog deer drive on the club’s 1,000 acres in Greensvil... READ MORE
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow … Repeat
By Mike Handley
It’s hard to stay enthusiastic when the deer at the top of your wish list goes AWOL for a couple of weeks, especially if you rely on trail cameras to reveal where to spend opening day. Just prior to Kentucky’s mid-November rifle season, Kent Walters knew exactly where he was going to be when the 2020 season dawned. He was collecting nig... READ MORE
Eleventh-hour Ohio Giant
By Mike Handley
When Scott Rawlings’s son, Cody, showed him a photograph of a magnificent whitetail in 2019 — supposedly taken near his Chillicothe, Ohio, home — the man never dreamed he’d actually see it. The likelihood was so remote that he barely gave more than a passing thought to the animal with downward-facing tines. By Scott’s ... READ MORE
Ghost Buster
By Mike Handley
After drooling over a summertime image of an enormous buck in 2019, Bruce Laudick quadrupled the number of trail cameras throughout his 5 acres in Grant County, Kentucky. He collected only a few more nighttime photos of the deer, which was discouraging, but he got the deer, which certainly put the spring back in his step. Bruce had nicknamed the 21... READ MORE