Fake News
By Mike Handley
Word travels fast among deer hunters, but the news, while plausible, isn’t always reliable.
When Carson Heskett and his childhood friend Reid Hopson heard that a bodacious buck had been hit by a car close to where Reid hunts, they assumed the deer two years at the top of his wish list was no longer in the offing. Death by Ford would certainly explain why the animal had not stepped in front of a trail camera in recent days.
“We thought the deer was dead, so we pulled the cameras off that property,” Carson said.
Switching gears mid-season was especially tough for Reid.
He considered the buck an up-and-comer in 2022, when he saw it behind his house. He didn’t consider it a shooter until the following year, when its rack might’ve hit the 160-inch mark. Reid saw the deer on the hoof once that season.
In 2024, the buck packed on another 20 to 30 inches of antler. The distinctive sticker point at the base of its right beam had practically doubled in length, more resembling a second beam on that side.
After the guys removed the cameras, a neighbor told them he’d seen another giant buck near the 300-acre rye field. Of course they redeployed a camera.
On Nov. 18, the first night it was back in operation, the familiar buck chased a doe in front of it.
“That deer is still alive,” Carson told Reid, a Wichita fireman, who couldn’t get away to hunt the property.
Aware that Carson was not working the oil field that week, Reid told him, “Go in there and get him!”
The 24-year-old from Crescent, Oklahoma, needed no further arm-twisting. The next morning, he watched the buck tending a doe at 100 yards for half an hour. When he returned that evening, he saw the pair again.
The distinctive whitetail would not leave its girlfriend. It even laid down in the middle of the rye field for a spell and paid no mind to Carson’s frantic grunting and rattling.
“The doe ultimately came to within 65 yards, and the buck to 80, and that was it,” Carson said. “They wound up going back into the timber flanking the field. There are about 20 acres of trees at each corner.”
The next morning was a bust, except for a few small bucks and does, but things got off to a fast start when Carson returned to his climbing stand about 2:30. The climber was 25 feet up a cottonwood in a small group of trees, 5 yards off the field. Deer began moving within 10 minutes of his arrival.
At 4:00, a couple of does burst from the nearest woodlot, and the buck wasn’t far behind them. For a time, the bull of the woods was running directly toward the salivating hunter. Before coming into bow range, however, it wheeled and went back into the trees.
“I couldn’t believe it came all that way, only to turn around and go back,” Carson said.
Forty minutes later, the buck chased the hot doe out of the woods again.
“I just kept praying: Just come over here … Just come over here … PLEASE,” Carson said.
That time, the doe brought the buck to within 35 yards, close enough for Carson to draw his bow.
“It was facing me, so I didn’t have a shot,” he explained. “I held at full draw for what seemed like forever before the deer finally took a step to its right, exposing its shoulder.
“I can shoot pretty dang good, but 35 yards was a little stressful,” he admitted. “I wound up convincing myself that if I could punch through that shoulder, he surely wouldn’t go far.”
Carson was right. He centered the shoulder, and the buck ran maybe 60 yards, stopped, and then collapsed.
“It was a surreal moment,” he said.
Carson tried four times to call Reid in Wichita, but got no answer. He then called his dad and other family members before Reid rang to hear the news and announce he was on his way.
A friend rough-scored Carson’s buck at 187 inches — 15 inches bigger than his previous best, which he’d shot with a crossbow at age 12 during his first solo hunt. They didn’t weigh the animal or check its jawbone, but they’re guessing it was between 6 and 7 years old.
“One story going around says I’d been hunting this deer hard for three years, but that’s not what happened. Reid had the history with this buck. We didn’t even plan on me hunting it,” he added.