Doug Hampton passed up a 170-inch whitetail in 2018, only because his outfitter promised he could return to Iowa and hunt it after it had “grown up.”
Doug’s hosts speculated the deer was only 3 1/2 years old when they and he first became acquainted with it. In his eyes, it was already a world-class trophy. In theirs, it was merely on its way to growing a rack that would surpass the 200-inch mark.
Nobody saw it in 2019, which must’ve really amplified Doug’s regrets.
In 2020, however, the animal found its way back to the same Appanoose County tract, wearing, as predicted, a nearly 214-inch rack. When Doug heard the news, he couldn’t leave Monticello, Arkansas, fast enough.
The 44-year-old arrived in camp the day before the season opened.
He spent the first three days, sunrise until sunset, in a box blind tucked into a woodlot beside a standing cornfield. On the fourth morning, he chose to sit in a rickety treestand 200 yards from the blind. For the afternoon hunt, however, he convinced the outfitters to rehang it closer to a brush-filled gully in which he suspected the big buck was bedding.
“After seeing the deer moving that morning and knowing the forecast was calling for a southwest wind, I knew the stand had to be moved,” Doug told Gita Smith, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “We rehung it 70 yards downwind in a hickory tree.”
The new setup was perfect if the buck was in the drainage and decided to exit the north rim.
Sometime after 4:00, while Doug was watching a doe and a yearling browse behind him, the buck walked out of the ditch about 125 yards distant.
“I actually lost my breath for a second as my eyes focused on what I immediately recognized as the biggest wild whitetail I had ever seen,” he said.
Forgetting the doe nearby, Doug instinctively reached for his grunt call, a move that didn’t go unnoticed. After bounding a short distance, the doe began stamping her foot.
The buck obviously heard her, but it must’ve thought the gesture was directed at it. Instead of heading back into the brush bowl, it came even closer.
“The buck raised its nose and bobbed its head twice, staring at the doe that was staring at me,” Doug said. “The deer was broadside, and I was thinking, It’s now or never, as I reached for the firearm.”
Moments later, the shot ensured the 5 1/2-year-old would never see another birthday.
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