In the whitetail world, the shortest distance between points A and B isn’t necessarily a straight line. Even during the summer and early hunting season, when deer are most predictable, they often zig and zag so much that it’s almost impossible to predict comings and goings, especially when the same animals are walking in front of trail cameras a mile and a half apart.
One might as well throw a dart at a map, right?
Since a buck might split its meals among several blocks of land, knowing where it likes to bed down and chew its cud offers hunters a far greater advantage. Or at least that’s the conclusion Clint Connor reached in 2020.
Clint collected his first trail camera photograph of the deer he shot that season two years earlier, in 2018. The following year, the buck carried a 180-inch rack – plenty big enough for even the most discriminating hunter.
Clint’s friend, Kelley Ries, was also collecting photos of the exceptional animal.
Both men hunted the same buck for two years before either of them saw it, and they happened to be together when they did.
The encounter occurred in February 2020. The guys were looking for antlers where Clint suspected the buck was bedding, close to an old strip mine near Owensboro, Kentucky. They jumped five bucks, and the last one was the beast they’d nicknamed Kickers.
“We just stood there like two kids in a candy store, in shock at finally seeing the big deer in the flesh, knowing he was still alive,” Clint told Dale Weddle, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.
His suspicions confirmed, Clint erected a box blind near the bedding area. Much to his delight, he continued retrieving photos, all after sundown.
Toward the end of October, Clint went to the bedding area blind with his 10-year-old son, Grant, and they actually saw the deer.
“The following afternoon, I wanted to get back in the blind early. Grant had other things to do, so I went by myself,” he said. “I was in place by 2:30.”
Two hours into the hunt, Kickers approached to within 45 yards of the blind.
“He looked like a dang elk standing there,” Clint smiled.
And if that wasn’t exciting enough, the deer even came 10 yards closer. Clint shot it when a doe’s arrival provided a distraction.
Kelley joined him for the recovery.
At 198 2/8 inches, it’s No. 3 among Kentucky’s Semi-irregulars harvested by crossbow.
— Read Recent Blog! How to Christen a New Bow: Only after he'd walked up to the animal did C.J. Boynes realize he'd shot the giant that had fueled his desire to spend as much time as possible in the Show Me State. Its Buckmasters score is 187 1/8 inches.