According to a recent web search, hunting land in Minnesota can cost between $8,000 and $10,000 per acre. The 200-plus-incher Greg Olson arrowed last year would make his family’s 20 acres in Freeborn County — not for sale — even more valuable.
Greg and his neighbor, Derek, share intel about the deer they see in their corner of the county. Derek enjoys naming the bucks, which makes conversing about them easier.
One of the bucks the guys saw frequently in 2024 had an interesting, though not particularly large rack. Derek named him “Allen”. Both men had numerous opportunities to shoot the lanky deer, and they each found one of the animal’s shed antlers the following spring, which they gave to Greg’s grandson.
During the summer, Derek texted Greg a photo of Allen wearing his new rack-in-progress. The antlers bore the same big inside hook that had been present the previous season, but they were markedly bigger. The buck was clearly going to surpass the 150-inch mark, at least half again as big as it had been in ’24, and bone was still growing.
Allen was often accompanied by another impressive whitetail, which Derek nicknamed “Goose”. Greg’s excitement over the season’s prospects was somewhat dampened, however, because his underperforming food plots weren’t getting much traffic.
“It was the worst year ever for food plots,” said the 55-year-old maintenance supervisor for the local school district. “First, we were flooded out, and that was followed by a drought.”
In addition, at least five different area landowners were accumulating trail camera images of the deer.
Two weeks prior to the 2025 archery opener, Greg finally began getting his own photos of Allen. Three hunts in, he actually saw the buck.
“He was 100 yards out there, but it really got my heart going,” he said.
Late September was unseasonably warm, and Allen was mostly a no-show until one Saturday night. On at least two occasions after that, the buck was very close to Greg’s homemade box stand, which is within a group of red pines situated between three food plots.
On October. 6, Greg went to his setup between 1:30 and 2:00. Allen arrived at 4 p.m. The buck remained well beyond range for 20 minutes, but was slowly getting closer.
“It was really tough. I finally had to stop looking at him, to put down my binoculars, in order to keep my sanity,” he said.
Greg’s previous career-best whitetail was a 168-incher, and this one was way bigger.
When the buck was within 55 yards, Greg almost snapped. Before he was further tested, however, he lost sight of the animal for a few seconds. When Allen reappeared at a previously ranged 50 yards, along with other deer, Greg decided he’d take the shot if he could stop the walking buck.
He tried bleating several times, but the animal paid no attention. At wit’s end, Greg finally yelled, “Hey,” which did the trick.
A couple of things happened on the arrow’s way to its target. First, it clipped a low-hanging branch. Also, the illuminated nock didn’t activate.
“It was so quick, I didn’t know where I hit the deer,” Greg admitted. “There was a very loud smack, though, and I thought I might’ve hit the shoulder or cracked a rib.”
Regardless, the whitetail spun instantly and ran up a nearby timbered ridge, where injured deer frequently go.
Greg sat until nightfall, almost two and a half hours. When he alerted his friend by text message, he was almost apologetic. He wished he could’ve offered more or better information than he’d simply shot Allen, somewhere. He also called his son-in-law, Drew, and wife April.
Drew helped with the search. They found the arrow, which indicated poor penetration. Finding a blood trail wasn’t as easy. They wound up bumping the deer, which had been only 25 yards from the men as they were conversing.
After a nearly sleepless night, they resumed the search from where they’d stuck the arrow in the ground. They almost quit, even calling to arrange for a tracker to come in the afternoon, but then Greg took a last stroll around the edge of a cornfield.
The buck was lying five yards from the edge. Coyotes had found it, but their meal must’ve been interrupted shortly after it began.
The deflected arrow had caught the deer behind the jaw, somehow clipping a major blood vessel. The deer had probably bled out within four hours.
“You know, I almost feel bad because the buck was so young,” Greg admitted. “But its rack had doubled in size. It had put on another 100-inches in one season. I’ve seen deer pack on an additional 50 from one year to the next, but never anything like this.
“This has been quite the rollercoaster,” he added.
Mike Kelly measured the 18-pointer for Buckmasters, arriving at an even 203 inches. It’s a mainframe 3x5 with nearly 40-inches of mass and 52 4/8-inches of irregular growth, good enough for the No. 6 spot among Minnesota’s bow-felled Irregulars. It’s also the largest archery buck ever recorded from Freeborn County.
Derek wound up getting Goose as well.
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