Family time is special. And Pat Hanson of Columbia, Missouri, is like many hunters who’ve learned how to juggle sitting in the stand with family events every fall. That’s why Hanson came close to not being in the right place at the right time when his son Parker was getting ready for his high-school homecoming dance last month.
“I got to my stand later than usual that evening because of the homecoming,” Hanson says. “That afternoon my wife, Kristen, and I were shooting pictures and enjoying being with him.”
But Hanson was also aching to get back into his ladder stand. It’s inside hardwood timber off a small pasture he owns in central Missouri. On the morning of Oct. 9 he was walking into that stand when he spotted a giant drop-tine buck he recognized, one he called “Teardrop” because of the oddly shaped antler.
“It was really moon-bright, and with binoculars I could see Teardrop sparing with another buck in the pasture,” says Hanson, a 45-year-old real estate appraiser. “They eventually moved away, and I got into my tree stand, but I didn’t see much that morning except some does.”
Hanson returned home to spend time with his family ahead of the school dance, then rushed back to his stand at 5 p.m.
“It was a pretty slow evening. But just before sunset I saw a buck in the pasture through some trees,” says Hanson. The buck was working his way along the tree line toward him. “I saw the drop-time on his rack, and I knew it was him. I never looked at his antlers again and just focused on the opening in brush where I could get a shot at him.”
The buck stopped right where Hanson wanted him — 28 yards from his stand, and well within crossbow range.
“He was quartering to me a bit, head up and looking around. I thought he was going to come straight to me, which is a terrible shot. So I took the quartering-to shot.”
The buck dropped to its knees, grunted, turned and ran into thick nearby woods. Pat heard a load pop, that Hanson believes was the sound of the buck running into a tree — then, nothing.
“I got out of my stand, found blood where I shot him, and marked the spot. Then I walked to my electric bike and came out of the woods. I had to meet my wife because Parker had forgotten his homecoming ticket, which I delivered to Kristen. Then I went back about an hour later to track the buck.”
He trailed the buck alone for an hour with a flashlight in the dark, finding blood, but not as much as he’d hope for. The buck crossed a creek bottom, then the blood trail disappeared. Pat began making circles in the woods trying to locate the blood trail again.
“It was the worse feeling possible, thinking I lost him. I’d pretty much given up and started walking out of the woods. It was going to rain the next day, so I was going to return with a tracking dog or a drone to locate Teardrop.”
But as Pat was hiking out of the woods he noticed something enormous lying beside a big tree.
“His body was so huge I thought it was a cow or something. It really freaked me out seeing him and his massive size.”
Pat contacted his wife, who met him in the woods with Parker, his daughter Ava, and her boyfriend, Jackson. They haulded the buck out of the woods to a golf cart, then to a truck, and finally to their home.
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The nontypical weighed 220 pounds dressed, with 24 scorable points tallying what Hanson says is 216 inches.
“My late father, John, got me and my brothers into hunting,” says Hanson, who clearly recalls his dad So “It’s pretty incredible that I shot Teardrop on what would have been my dad’s birthday.”
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