Harley Whitaker had permission to bowhunt a 250-acre farm in Ralls County, Missouri, owned by the family of his fiancée, Audrey Ross. He’d never scouted for deer there until the afternoon of Oct. 3.
“I was just glassing a clover field that afternoon trying to learn about the deer,” Whitaker tells Outdoor Life. “There were plenty of deer, and some bucks I saw that afternoon. I took a climbing tree stand into the area the next day about 3 p.m.”
Whitaker chose to hunt near a creek draw among the hardwoods that connected one clover field to another one nearby. He used a climbing stand and started seeing deer filter into the field that afternoon.
“About 4 p.m. I saw a big, strange-rack buck in the field about 65 yards away,” says Whitaker, a natural resources major at the University of Missouri. “He was too far for an ethical shot, so I came back again the next afternoon, and hunted the same spot. The buck did the same thing again, well out of bow range when it entered the clover.”
Whitaker only could hunt weekends because of his class schedule at MU, and the property was a 90-minute drive from the college. But he kept trying for the big, unusual buck every chance he could.
The afternoon of Oct. 11, Whitaker was in a climbing tree stand again on the same clover field edge. About 5 p.m. he heard something behind him, and there was the 3-beam buck he’d been hunting just 35 yards from his stand.
“He was in a thick place, and I had to crouch down at a weird angle to try a shot at him,” says the 20-year-old hunter. “I tried to slip an arrow to him, but I missed him clean.”
Whitaker says the buck was unsure of what had just happened when the arrow missed. He went back to hunt the spot a few more times but didn’t see the buck again until Oct. 19. It was chasing a doe, and it entered the clover field through the draw, but it never got close enough for a shot opportunity.
“I didn’t want to bump the buck, but I knew I had to get near the draw for a shot,” Whitaker explains. “I decided to skip my classes the next day, which was a Monday, Oct. 20, and I put my stand closer to the draw.”
The next afternoon was windy. Whitaker climbed a red oak tree near the draw and watched does filter into the clover field beginning at about 4 p.m.
“At 5:30 I saw him stand up in the draw at 75 yards,” Whitaker says. “He was bedded there, and I had no idea he was that close until he stood up. He was eating acorns and turned toward me coming down a very well-used trail.”
Whitaker didn’t know for sure if the buck he saw stand up was the same deer he’d been after until it was 60 yards away. The buck kept coming directly to Whitaker, eventually getting to 20 yards and turning broadside. The young bowman made a deer bleat call with his mouth. The buck stopped, and Whitaker sent an arrow through its chest, taking out both lungs. The 3-blade, 125-grain fixed broadhead zipped through the deer and then buried into the ground on the far side of the buck.
Read Next: ‘Just Like Clockwork.’ Ohio Bowhunter Tags a Rare Piebald Buck He’d Been Seeing On Trail Cams for Years
“I never saw the arrow in flight, but I heard it hit,” he says. “The deer ran into the clover field, wobbled a bit, then fell over dead. He only covered 50 yards before falling.”
Whitaker walked over to the downed deer and was stunned at its its size — he estimates it was around 250 pounds. Even more remarkable was the rack, which had three big main beams. He called his fiancée’s mom, who drove a UTV to Whitaker along with her high-school age son Jacob. The three of them loaded the buck onto the UTV and returned to a farm building where the deer was field dressed and caped for mounting by a taxidermist friend.
The nontypical buck has 18 points, and while it hasn’t been properly green scored, people who’ve seen it have guessed around 170 inches.
“If I get the deer mount back from the taxidermist before I marry Audrey this summer, I’ll hang it in my university dorm room,” said Whitaker. “If I get it back after we get married, I’ll put it in our apartment.
“Audrey shouldn’t have a problem with that. She hunts and has taken a couple deer, so she knows what an unusual buck he is.”
Read the full article here
