Colonel Mustard did not do it in the library with a lead pipe. Miss Scarlet did not do it in the kitchen with a knife. And Professor Plum didn't do it in the study with a revolver.
In the game of Clue that played out in central Louisiana during the long Christmas break, 'twas John Prior who drew blood, with a rifle, in a place called Honey Brake.
The 50-year-old Georgia businessman and designer of bass fishing lures might not have been the only one to make a shot count during that extended week, but he definitely won the game.
John was among 10 hunters, including legendary angler Hank Parker, there to catch what they hoped would be the peak of the rut. They apparently arrived early, however, because that wasn't the case.
Nevertheless, several hunters put their tags on mature bucks, most by being in the right place, at the right time, according to luck of the draw.
John gave up on that notion and "went mobile" after four days of sitting and hoping. That meant pulling out a popup blind barely big enough for him and a cameraman and heading to the least pressured section.
In addition to his own daily reconnaissance, he became a sponge for information. And all clues, boosted by what he saw on Google Earth, pointed him to the right spot on the 10th morning.
Ten minutes after daylight, John looked up and saw the buck of his dreams - the largest one their cameras had photographed - standing in a shooting lane. The camera was in his way, so he knelt, wrapped his right arm around the camera's tripod, and touched his rifle's trigger.
Even though he was contorted and breathing like a woman in labor, he dropped the deer where it stood, and except for a moment when the recoil knocked the camera off target, the short hunt was captured on film.
When the footage was aired on Parker's "Flesh and Blood" TV show last summer, viewers most likely forgave the nanosecond lapse and the missing impact shot. But they didn't hear all the details that'll be shared in Rack magazine this fall.