Some deer are just too big to be trussed atop a four-wheeler.
Karen Little and her husband, Allen, gave up trying on Nov. 20, 2016. No amount of lifting, pushing, pulling or clever binding put them any closer to securing the buck she'd shot to their ATV.
Between the whitetail's heft and its extraordinarily wide antlers, the task was too great. Even if they managed to drape it across the ATV, moving it would've been like trying to walk through a doorway while holding a rake sideways.
The couple from Poplar Grove, Arkansas, ultimately swapped the four-wheeler for a truck.
Karen is a rural mail carrier and grandmother of 10. She often hunts with two of her granddaughters, Sarah Smalley and 10-year-old Maddie Logan.
Maddie was visiting that weekend, which happened to coincide with the rut.
At 2:30 Sunday afternoon, Karen and Maddie struck out for a double ladder stand about a mile from the house. In preparation, Karen sprayed herself and her granddaughter with a new acorn cover scent, something she'd never tried before that day. She put it on their heads, hands and boots.
The 15-foot ladder stand leans against an oak and faces Big Creek. Behind it and to the side were cut cornfields ringed by scrapes and rubs.
Karen might've wished for a buck, but she admits she would've happily shot a doe if one had appeared. She wound up shooting the only deer she saw.
"I don't really have much of a story," she says modestly. "The deer came up the creek bank about 75 or 80 yards away at 5:04, just a few minutes before dark, and I started counting points. When I got up to about 10, I stopped.
"That was enough," she added. "I knew it was a keeper."
When Karen squeezed her .270's trigger, the buck reared and fell, and Maddie yelled "YES!"
Karen didn't know a buck of this caliber existed on their place in Phillips County, though the neighboring landowners had seen it. She initially thought she'd killed the big 10-pointer she'd seen while delivering the mail two weeks earlier.
She didn't realize the one she shot was much bigger until her hubby arrived to help load it.
The deer's BTR composite score is 215 inches.
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And from Public Land, No Less: Josh Clark / BTR Composite Score: 203 4/8 inches.