Adam Duncan of Edmond, Oklahoma tagged the buck of a lifetime during an evening hunt in his home state earlier this month. Duncan shot the wide-racked 13-pointer just before last light on October 2, he tells Field & Stream, after getting a brief glimpse of it the previous day.
"He was 60 yards away when I saw him on opening morning (October 1), and I couldn't get a shot," Duncan says. "My heart sank. Opportunities at mature bucks like that are hard to come by."
Disappointed but undeterred, Duncan was back in the blind on the evening of October 1 and again on the morning of October 2—but the buck didn't show during either of those outings. "He gave me another chance during my second evening hunt of the season, and I didn't let that one slip away," he says.
Duncan recalls a surge of adrenaline when the deer's giant rack emerged from a thicket about 30 yards away. "I absolutely lost control of myself," he says. "It worked in my favor that his approach was extremely slow, though. That gave me time to slow my thoughts and my heart rate. I was able to transition from sheer excitement to kill mode."
At 26 yards, the deer stopped in its tracks and stared at Duncan's ground blind. "I could tell by his body language that he knew something wasn’t right," he says. "When he made his move to turn around and leave, I came to full draw."
The buck turned 90 degrees and stopped. Suddenly, it was standing broadside, Duncan says. "I’m terrible at splitting pins so I went with my 20 yard pin," he says. "Rather than aiming a tad high, I decided to put it right on the spot. Him being so tense, I figured he would drop his back down to dodge the arrow."
But the deer didn't flinch, and Duncan's arrow hit slightly low. He says he stayed in the ground blind for an hour after the shot before climbing out to look for blood. "Luckily, the blood was good, and I followed it until I saw antlers in the beam of my headlamp, about 60 yards from where I'd shot him" he says. "I sat on the ground and turned off my headlamp before laying a hand on him. I said a prayer in the darkness while a pack of coyotes was sounding off nearby."
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Duncan says the buck's green gross score came in at 185 and 4/8 inches. A lifelong hunter, it's the biggest buck he's ever taken with either bow or rifle. "Like every deer I’ve ever killed, the best part was sharing this journey with my dad," he says, "the man that introduced me to it all."
