Typical Archery Category in Missouri Has New Biggest Buck

Missouri bowhunter Scott Linn took a buck last November that will now sit atop the typical archery category in the Show Me State. Linn, who has been bowhunting 37 years, says he first took notice of the buck in the fall of 2022.

"I was running trail cameras in late August that summer when I began getting pics of a big 9-point," Scott said.

Accompanying him was a really nice 5x5 with some unique shaped tines and a lot of potential. That buck was on the radar, but not at the top of Scott’s hit list. Later that fall during Missouri’s rifle season, Scott successfully harvested the wide 9-point on the states opening day.

Scott’s advanced scouting during the summer of 2023 confirmed that the buck had survived and grown a much bigger 10-point mainframe with multiple kicker points. Scott was confident the buck would gross over 180 inches. With this substantial jump in both tine length & mass, the buck quickly became known by family members and neighbors who were observing him feeding in the soybean fields throughout the buck’s large home range.

"I hunted him hard that fall, but only saw him one time from the stand in late October," Scott said. "I was hunting along the edge of a soybean field when he appeared in the woods on a trail that parallelled the field edge. He veered off and skirted me to the west, just out of bow range."

After coming that close and observing how incredible he was in person, Scott made a commitment of pursuing only that buck. But after passing up several really nice bucks throughout the remainder of the 2023 season, he admitted that he was questioning his own sanity at times.

After pulling trail cameras at the end of the season, he found that the buck had been ranging an area of several square miles during the rut, making him nearly impossible to pin down.

In the spring of 2024, a friend of Scott’s picked up the deer’s left shed antler in some tall grass along the edge of a crop field, but never told anyone at the time.

“We were all keeping our cards pretty close to our vest at that time, knowing that the buck was still out there and in play for the coming season,” Linn said with a big smile.

Looking forward to pursuing the buck once again, Scott placed several trail cameras out during the summer.

“I wasn’t getting any pictures of the big buck like I had the previous summer," he said. "I was concerned that either something had happened to him or he had established a new core area."

It wasn’t until mid-September in hard-horn that the buck finally showed himself on one of his cameras. The buck had morphed into a giant, adding substantial mass, taller tines and now sporting a 6x6 typical frame.

On November 5th, Scott took the day off from hunting to go vote, but had taken the remainer of the week off to hunt. On the morning of November 6th, however, he ended up working half the day to help a customer rather than heading to deer camp.

He decided mid-day that he had to get in the woods, and proceded to make the two-hour drive to hunting camp.

Arriving several hours later than he had planned, Scott got set up and situated in his treestand a little after 3 o'cloxk. On this particular evening, he chose a stand approximately a mile away from where he’d normally been hunting the big buck because of an east wind.

“The wind was perfect for the stand," Linn said." It just felt right.”

Around 4:15, Scott says he looked off to the northeast and caught movement of a deer. It was a lone doe sneaking through some thick brush heading in his direction. The doe worked its way by Scott’s location at 19 yards and continued out into a nearby agriculture field. Moments later, Scott heard the unmistakable sounds of a mature buck grunt in the direction where the doe had appeared.

“I was watching that patch of brush expecting to see a mature 10-pointer that frequented the area," Scott explained. "But when I saw the first glimpse of the distinctive long, curved tines and kickers on his right side coming through the brush, there was no question that it was the big mainframe 12! I took one look at his rack and never looked at it again.”

Remaining still with his Hoyt RX-7 Ultra in hand, Scott waited as the buck followed the same route the doe had taken moments earlier. As the buck cleared the brush and stepped out into the crop field looking for the doe, the archer came to full draw. Taking his time, Scott settled his pin on the vitals of the giant buck. At impact, the buck whirled towards a tall patch of grass and out of sight in just a few seconds.

Knowing the hit was good, Scott waited roughly 45 minutes before climbing down and taking up the blood trail. Following the easy tracking job just shy of a hundred yards, there laid the buck he had been pursuing exclusively for two seasons.

“There was definitely no ground shrinkage," Scott chuckled as he stood over the deer, marveling at the once-in-a-lifetime buck.

Recognizing the significance of the moment, Scott snapped as many good pictures as possible with his phone before it got dark, and got the buck out of the woods.

After showing the buck to a few close friends the next morning, one of them admitted to having found the buck’s unmistakable left-side shed that spring and gave it to Scott the next day.

“This belongs with you,” he said.

“I will never forget that gesture of friendship and hunter’s respect for the animals that we work tirelessly to both conserve and pursue," Linn said. "The 2023 shed held next to the 2024 antler is undeniable evidence of how magnificent whitetail deer truly are and the potential they can reach when given proper nutrition and are allowed to reach that 5 1/2- to 7 1/2-year age class necessary to achieve their full potential.”

After the 60-day drying period, the Vernon County mainframe 6x6 typical was officially scored with an overall gross of 219 3/8 inches, with a gross typical frame of 210 7/8 inches, and a net typical score of 191 5/8 inches. 

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