Arkansas native Danny Duvall spent December 28, the last day of the regular gun deer season, like many hunters likely spent it: shivering in a tree stand, waiting to take his final shot at success for the year. And while Duvall managed to score a buck that day, his method of packing out the meat was far from typical. He loaded what he could in the literal clothes off his back: his hoodie.
Duvall had reached his limit of sitting still in the rainy and high winds by 9:30 A.M. He hadn't seen any sign of deer all morning. The rut was over, and Duvall knew that if he wanted to find any bucks, he'd have to go to them. He set out from his deer stand on foot, guessing that any animals would be hunkered down in a holler out of the wind.
He found an established deer trail close by and followed it for a couple of hours, dropping down into a holler of pine trees. His intuition led him right: There he spotted not one but two eight-point bucks and a few other deer lying down huddled together.
Duvall settled in to wait for some movement, watching the bucks through his scope. Around 45 minutes later, some nearby squirrel hunters spooked the bucks. They all stood up, including one that Duvall hadn't seen before. It turned out to be a big buck that Duvall's cousin had caught on trail camera a couple of times—and the exact reason Duvall had chosen to hang his tree stand in that particular stretch of woods.
Duvall got a shot off on his buck, and the deer ran 100 yards before he caught up to it. He shot it twice more before the buck dropped.
Courtesy of Danny Duvall
Unfortunately, the hunter had left his backpack and game bags back in his tree stand. Not one to waste any time, he field-dressed, quartered, and deboned the buck, and then, with nothing else to do, he took off his hoodie and stuffed it full of deer meat—about 50 pounds in total. Duvall trekked back to his truck, lugging the heavy hoodie, the buck's antlered head, and his rifle. The terrain was hilly and the vegetation thick, so it took him 2 to 3 hours to cover the mile or so, laden down as he was.
The extra work was all worth it, however. The hoodie buck is the largest Duvall has ever tagged, and the rack has 10 scoreable points. His friends gave it green scores in the upper 150s, and he's already submitted it to a local contest, the Arkansas Big Buck Contest.
Regardless of how the buck scores in the contest, one thing is certain; Duvall won't likely forget this buck, or the hard work it took to pack him out, anytime soon. No word on whether or not he kept the hoodie.
