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Jake Hansard tagged a 170-inch buck on a steep North Georgia ridge after chasing a deer he'd only ever seen in one cut-o...
09/25/2026

Jake Hansard tagged a 170-inch buck on a steep North Georgia ridge after chasing a deer he'd only ever seen in one cut-off photo.

The hunt began in March with a single cut-off customer photo showing one massive beam. Hansard fed the property all summer and never got the buck on camera until a homeowner spotted it heading down a creek the day before. He pulled his setup from Fulton County and sat a ground blind on a windless 68-degree morning, since the ridge was too steep for a stand. Around 7:55, the buck followed two does in, and Hansard avoided looking at the rack to keep buck fever in check. His arrow hit the heart at 18 yards, and the buck went about 40 yards. The 8x7 carries a dark chocolate rack, an inner curl and two kickers.

Hansard says about 20 people had been after the deer, and he has no plans to enter it in a record book.

Congrats Jake!

Louisiana bowhunter Jake Arceneaux tagged a 10-point Mississippi buck he'd tracked for four years, a giant he expects wi...
09/25/2026

Louisiana bowhunter Jake Arceneaux tagged a 10-point Mississippi buck he'd tracked for four years, a giant he expects will score in the high 160s or low 170s.

Arceneaux first spotted the deer at 2.5 years old, when it already showed split G2s and long tines, and he hunted it all last season but saw it only twice. On Saturday of the Sept. 11-13 early archery weekend, a small 8-point walked through his 20-yard window, and about two minutes later the big buck followed the same trail. Arceneaux drew while the deer was behind a tree, stopped it at 20 yards, and put an arrow behind the front shoulder. He backed out to camp to give the buck time, then found it just over a sand mound, less than 100 yards from the hit. The main-frame 10-point has a 23-inch inside spread and hasn't been officially scored.

Arceneaux says the harvest is bittersweet, since the buck that kept him in the stand for years is no longer out there to chase this season.

Congrats Jake!

A North Carolina bowhunter just arrowed her biggest buck ever, on opening day, after passing on the very same deer a ful...
09/22/2026

A North Carolina bowhunter just arrowed her biggest buck ever, on opening day, after passing on the very same deer a full year earlier.

Reid Moorefield had the 10-point buck at 20 yards last season and let it walk when it was scoring around 120 inches. Her husband, Justus, patterned the deer for months, driving his truck in to bait the same spot every evening for three days before the season opened and noting the buck showed up during the same shooting-hours window almost every time. On opening day, to avoid spooking the deer, he had his dad drive them all the way to the stand and then drive the truck back out, so the buck would think it was just another feeding visit. Reid connected that evening in Stokes County, with the buck measuring 145-inches.

Patience paid off in a big way for the Moorefields. Anyone chasing a deer they've watched grow knows the feeling: sometimes the wait is worth it.

Congrats Reid!

15-year-old Wrangler Fugate of Morgantown, Kentucky just tagged a 23-point buck grossing over 160 inches after spending ...
09/22/2026

15-year-old Wrangler Fugate of Morgantown, Kentucky just tagged a 23-point buck grossing over 160 inches after spending seven straight nights in his stand.

Wrangler patterned an early bachelor group holding three mature bucks and committed to taking the first one that gave him a clean shot, so when the deer began moving right at first and last light, he chose to stay in his stand through the night rather than risk spooking them. That patience finally paid off Sunday evening, when the giant stepped out in the last minutes of legal shooting light. It's the latest trophy for a hunter who took up archery at 12, has killed a notable buck every season since, and already has a 167-inch giant on his wall from age seven.

With numbers like these before he's even out of high school, Wrangler Fugate is a name southern hunters will be tracking for years to come.

Congrats Wrangler!

A Florida bowhunter just tagged a true giant — a 13-point Suwannee county buck that rough-scored an incredible 151 inche...
09/22/2026

A Florida bowhunter just tagged a true giant — a 13-point Suwannee county buck that rough-scored an incredible 151 inches.

Andrew Bennett had hunted the property for four years, but a severe summer drought dried up a neighboring swamp and pushed new deer onto his land, showing up on trail cameras he set out in July. He got his first live look at the buck in early August and kept getting photos of him almost daily leading into opening day. Bennett delayed his morning hunt to avoid spooking deer, then sat through a thunderstorm that afternoon — and the moment it stopped raining, the buck came running in to check nearby scrapes, closing to 8 yards. The shot caught both lungs and clipped the heart, and the buck ran less than 30 yards before going down.

The buck will need an official score once it finishes drying out, but at a rough 151 inches, it's already one of the biggest bucks taken in Florida this season.

Congrats Andrew!

A crossbow arrow fired in a Missouri neighborhood pierced an Amazon van's windshield and three packages, narrowly missin...
09/20/2026

A crossbow arrow fired in a Missouri neighborhood pierced an Amazon van's windshield and three packages, narrowly missing the driver.

Driver Carl McCasland was leaning into the back of his van in Fenton, Missouri, when the arrow struck, and he first assumed it was a bullet. The shot came from roughly 100 yards away, and police say the shooter was testing a new crossbow and overshot his target. Officers deemed it an accident, and no charges have been filed. McCasland said that if he had been in the front seat, the arrow could have impaled him. Amazon has since been checking on him and giving him easier routes.

The incident came just two days before Missouri's bow season opened, and conservation officials are urging hunters to avoid shooting in neighborhoods. Dan Zarlenga of the Missouri Department of Conservation advises putting a berm or hill behind your target so a miss has somewhere safe to land.

Graphic: Illustrated recreation - not a photo of the actual incident.

Kentucky bowhunter Jerrod Lindsay tagged a typical 12-point buck he estimates will score around 173, a deer he'd followe...
09/19/2026

Kentucky bowhunter Jerrod Lindsay tagged a typical 12-point buck he estimates will score around 173, a deer he'd followed on trail camera for three years.

Lindsay first got the buck on camera three years ago and found his shed two years later, when he was just a 2.5-year-old 12-pointer. Last year he had very few pictures of him, and by then he'd grown into a high-140s 11-point. This season the deer reappeared September 1, moved in daylight several days in a row until the day before opening day, then turned nocturnal and vanished for a couple of days before returning with hardened antlers. Lindsay figured the buck would show before dark despite the heat, ticks and mosquitoes, and he stepped out just 10 minutes after Lindsay settled into his stand at 5:27 p.m., earlier than he had ever appeared there. With his Mathews Z7 bow, Gold Tip arrow and Rage broadhead, Lindsay put the shot right through his lungs.

The rack is a clean typical with a 22-inch spread and 25- and 26-inch beams.
What a deer!

Congrats Jerrod!

An Arkansas hunter closed the book on his target buck, 'Big Boy,' this week — arrowing the giant 8-point he'd spared as ...
09/17/2026

An Arkansas hunter closed the book on his target buck, 'Big Boy,' this week — arrowing the giant 8-point he'd spared as a smaller buck the year before.

Mason Norman first encountered the buck last fall, easily recognizable by a main beam broken behind its second and third points, and made the call to let him walk. The buck wintered on Norman's property before dropping his antlers, then turned up again on trail camera in March feeding in a food plot of turnips, clover and winter grass — often right alongside wild turkeys.

Norman and his sons spent the summer scouting his bedding areas and running mineral and feed to keep tabs on him heading into fall. Norman sat out Arkansas's opening day for his wife's birthday, then connected the next evening, watching a string of does and yearlings file past his stand before the buck finally showed with just minutes of shooting light left. He closed to 30 yards with a G5 Montec broadhead off his new Mathews bow; the buck jumped three times, staggered and went down 50 yards later.

Norman says the payoff came after two full weeks of daily practice with his new bow and years of patience passing on a young buck most hunters wouldn't have let walk.

A North Carolina hunter closed out a four-year chase this month, tagging a giant Orange County buck that finally slipped...
09/17/2026

A North Carolina hunter closed out a four-year chase this month, tagging a giant Orange County buck that finally slipped up and scored an eye-popping 191-5/8 inches.

Graham Smith first picked up the buck on camera in 2022 right before turkey season, then watched him reappear in the same late-October window in both 2023 and 2024, including one close encounter he passed on because the deer never came within bow range. The buck daylighted in 2025 chasing a doe, then showed back up this past July and stuck around through summer before vanishing on August 31 as he shed his velvet.

The buck resurfaced in daylight September 9, then walked past Smith's stand at 6:34 a.m. on opening morning, September 12—only Smith was hunting a different property. The buck finally made his mistake the following Sunday evening, stepping out at 7:30 p.m. for the fatal shot.

Smith held off an hour before recovering the deer, and the final 191-5/8-inch score puts him among the biggest bucks taken in the state this season. Four years of patience finally paid off in the best possible way.

Congrats Graham!

Arkansas hunter and pastor James Green took down a 10.5 year old buck named "Browser," that he had followed on camera fo...
09/16/2026

Arkansas hunter and pastor James Green took down a 10.5 year old buck named "Browser," that he had followed on camera for two years.

Browser was moving in daylight every day of the Arkansas velvet hunt. On Saturday evening, though, he was bedded just 30 yards downwind of Green's walk-in trail, and a Sunday at church kept Green out of the woods. So Green skipped his usual route and flanked the buck by crossing the ridgetop, dropping down a steep bank and climbing back up in a 1-hour-20-minute approach before daylight.

At first light, Browser walked up the ridge just 10 yards above the trail Green would normally have used. Green missed his first opening while fumbling with his camera, then waited 45 tense minutes as the buck ran off five other bucks and lingered in the trees before stepping out for a quartering-away shot through the lungs!

A taxidermist first estimated the deer at 8.5, then removed the jawbone at his shop and aged him at 10.5, an old bully Green says was already on his way down.

The full hunt will be posted on his YouTube channel, Green Acres Outdoors.

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