Three days before Oklahoma's 2014 bow season opened, Joel Clark called his friend, Eric Rosser, to see if he wanted to join a hunting lease. Eric declined, at first, because he'd just chipped in on another lease in the western part of the state.
But Joel was persistent.
Having a place to hunt in Lincoln County, within an hour of his home, was what ultimately sold him.
Eric didn't get a chance to bowhunt the tract before Oklahoma's muzzleloader season. He might have missed that, too, if Joel hadn't shared some trail camera photographs with him.
Among the images was one blurry photo of a buck the other hunters on the lease had nicknamed Fire because of its antlers' resemblance to flames. It was hard to tell how many points were on the rack, but there were plenty.
Eric told Joel he would hunt with him during the blackpowder season's second weekend.
At 11:00 on Halloween night, Joel texted Eric to say he'd been out late trick-or-treating with his kids, so he would not arrive until 9 a.m. He urged Eric not to wait on him.
Eric had been to the ranch only once for about a 20-minute drive to look at a few stands and food plots.
The next morning, Eric wound up going to the only stand he knew he could find, known as the L Stand, at the center of the property. It overlooked a big winter wheat food plot with a feeder in the middle.
He liked the setup so much that he returned there on Sunday. After watching mostly does and some wild hogs, Eric began thinking about moving to another spot.
Before he could follow his instincts, he saw the flash of antlers in the tall grass. A buck was slowly following a small doe. When it passed through a low spot at 102 yards, which allowed Eric to see the top 6 or 8 inches of its back, he squeezed the trigger.
He shot Fire.
The 43-pointer has a BTR composite score of 224 4/8 inches. Rusty Johnson measured the antlers and wrote the story for Rack magazine.