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Harvesting a buck of a lifetime is... well, it’s a lifetime achievement.
Unless, you’re Chris Woodall.
The 41-year-old Marion man has more than duplicated a feat he rang up 19 years ago. Woodall is now one of a remarkably few hunters on earth who can boast multiple such milestones.
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The whitetail sported a rack with 23 visible points and roughs out at nearly 200 inches on the Boone and Crockett scoring system.
“I am very fortunate, very humbled by it,” Woodall says.
It’s a mainframe 12-pointer with incredible mass and characteristics like kickers, fliers and drop tines that certainly put this deer among the best ever harvested in Crittenden County, a place known for trophy whitetails.
The story begins more than a year earlier when a neighbor showed him a trail camera photograph of a monster buck. The deer was never seen in daylight, only captured on camera in the dark of night. That season, Woodall believes he may have had a close encounter with the deer in a heavily thicketed area with limited sight distance.
“I just believed in my gut that was a big deer, maybe this one,” he said.
Earlier this fall, another neighbor found a picture of this buck on one of his cameras. It, too, was taken at night. But no one hunting in the area had laid eyes on this trophy buck during the daytime. At least until 4 p.m., Nov. 28.
Woodall is a self-described old-school hunter. He doesn’t rely on too many gimmicks to harvest big bucks, but his formula is well tested. In 2001, he bagged a huge buck that grossed 180-plus and went
into the Boone and Crockett permanent record book with a net score of 1711⁄8.No lures, no cover scents, no food plots or corn piles will you find in Woodall’s strategies to harvest wall-hangers. His recipe for success includes spending a whole lot of time in the seat of a stand, letting marginal trophies walk and paying particular attention to not disturbing his hunting area year round, creating a sanctuary of sorts to where deer retreat when the pressure of rifle season bears down on the fall.
“I try not to leave a big footprint. I don’t know if it’s the right way or the wrong way. I just step back and stay out of there as much as possible. I take inventory of the deer on our farm when I get in the stand,” he said. “There are times that I will sit there all day and never lift my rifle.”
Hunting next to a harvested soybean field about 200 yards from an overgrown area of CRP that measures about 40 acres, Woodall’s vigil began about 2 p.m., that fateful Saturday almost three weeks ago. A few deer were browsing around the edges of the field when he noticed a phantom-like image lurking about 20 yards deep into the heavy cover of the set-aside. He doesn’t carry binoculars so he pulled up his .223 rifle and turned up the scope to maximum power.
“I just saw tines. He was still back in the thicket. I knew it was buck but couldn’t tell if it was a shooter.”
A small doe was just in front of the buck and she slowly worked her way into the edge of the field where the other deer were feeding. The farther she walked away from the buck in the thicket, the more Woodall could tell something was about to break.
“I don’t know why he came out, but you could tell instantly that he was uncomfortable in the field,” Woodall explains. “He immediately started to run, but then stopped all of a sudden and looked at some other small bucks in the field.”
That’s when Woodall squeezed the trigger on a 200-yard neck shot that dropped the brute in his tracks.
He waited a bit for things to settle down. The other deer seemed unaffected by the rifle blast. He waited in the stand about 45 minutes until they’d cleared the field then walked over to the buck.
Only then did the reality of what he’d downed come into full view.
“I’m 41 years old, but to say I got a little emotional would be an understatement,” he explained. “I called my wife and told her she wouldn’t believe it. She could tell by my voice it had to have been something special.”
“In 2001 when I got that first one, I had never heard of Boone and Crockett,” he admits.
Now, he can’t wait to get the bottom line score on this behemoth, but it will take a while. In order to be officially scored for the record book, the antlers must complete a drying period.
Just like he hunts – letting nature take its normal course – Woodall will wait patiently before the final figures are displayed. For now, it has grossed 1981⁄8.
