Any self-respecting bowhunter can make an 8-yard shot, right?
Scott McNown can.
And many archers can thread 4-inch holes to put a broadhead precisely where they want, right?
Scott McNown did.
When the dust settled (literally) on Nov. 5, 2019, this Kansas deer hunter was calling and asking his wife to bring a four-wheeler. Together, they hoisted what was likely the property’s largest whitetail onto the ATV.
A satisfied customer had given the 25-year-old homebuilder hunting rights on the 160 acres, which offer the only cover in a 2-square-mile area. Scott’s buck wasn’t the only living thing to bite dust that day.
An automobile accident on nearby Hwy. 160 had forced traffic to detour down the dirt road upwind of where Scott was hunting. At times, it was like trying to breathe inside a vacuum cleaner bag.
Scott endured the grit because he wanted a shot at a geriatric buck he and wife Rachel had nicknamed Goofy in 2017. They thought the old warrior had died until it walked in front of a trail camera in October 2019.
“He was bigger-bodied and taller-racked than ever,” Scott told Gita Smith, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.
The deer’s reappearance spurred the Kansan into moving a stand to the edge of the cedar thicket he suspected was the buck’s daytime refuge.
On Nov. 5, Scott got the south wind he needed to hunt the stand. Two hours into his vigil, he saw a doe running through the bedding area, and he wasn’t sure whether he’d actually heard a deer grunting behind her, or if he imagined it.
That question was answered a moment later, when he actually saw a buck 90 feet in her wake. There was no doubt it was Goofy.
While the doe ran downwind of Scott, the buck paused at a hedgerow less than 10 yards from him. There was only a small window through tree branches between nocked arrow and deer vitals.
“As soon as that doe caught my scent, she blew. The buck raised his head, and I drew. I knew it was do or die, so I put my arrow right where it needed to go,” he said.
Scott’s taxidermist rough-scored this Sunflower State 13-pointer at 175 inches, one of the most impressive 175-inchers to be featured in the magazine.
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