If you ever want to understand what obsession feels like, sit with Clinton Fawcett for a minute, and listen to him talk about deer hunting.
He’s got ample stories that speak to his love for the pursuit of whitetail bucks. However, no buck had messed with Clinton’s mind like the one that showed up on his trail cameras over the last year.
It started with a picture — one cold, foggy morning, a buck standing like a silhouette on the edge of a cornfield, his drop tines carving the sky. Clinton saw that photo at work and thought to himself, “That’s either a 160 or a 190.”
But the picture failed to tell the whole story. Photos couldn’t show the raw, loaded mass of the rack and the way the deer seemed to fill the frame like a living monument.
He knew the buck from the year before, a mover — he’d roam a mile or more, show up everywhere and nowhere. The talk and scheming of the buck became a daily ritual for Clinton and his buddies. He sent the trail cam pics to his neighbors and friends hunting the area. “Secrecy around a deer like that just ruins friendships,” he said.
He also knew that a buck of that size would be no secret. Others would know. Others would be hunting the same deer. So they all watched, and they all waited for the opportunity at an encounter with the buck dreams are made of.
As the summer of 2025 turned to fall, the buck showed up just enough to keep a shred of hope alive for Clinton. He would hunt the buck when conditions were right, and the buck seemed to be in the area.
With every sit, hope and frustration continued to collide. The buck would show at odd times, in bedding areas, scrape trees, sometimes at daylight, and sometimes only in the haunted glow of trail cam flashes.
Clinton chose, again and again, to respect the animal and the neighborhood. “I just wanted to make sure I can handle this the right way,” he said.
As the weeks went by, the chess match continued. Clinton remembers one hunt where he was certain he was in tight – close to the bucks home turf. However, while he sat in his stand, his trail cam sent him a photo of the buck on another farm he had access to – a mile away!
Then, one evening everything came together. Clinton had nearly packed it in. Fifteen minutes before dark, tired and thinking of his family back home, he started to gather his gear. He glanced up once more. Out in the field, a deer stood at 150 yards. He lifted his binoculars, and just past that first deer, another shape lurched closer.
It was him.
Clinton fumbled with his camera, pulled his bow down from above his head and grabbed his grunt call. A series of calls got the bucks attention. He turned his wide, heavy rack and walked straight toward him — a slow, patient walk from 150 yards out.
The buck made a careful and intentional march toward the sound of Clinton’s calls. He walked across the field and began to close a gap that had lived in Clinton’s head for months.
Now within bow range, the buck slipped into the timber. For a moment, Clinton thought he’d have to let the buck go past him to avoid a quartering shot. But then like a gift from God, the buck stopped and rubbed a tree he’d likely rubbed many times before.
Clinton drew his bow and remembers telling himself, “Don’t shoot him in the shoulder high. Don’t shoot too low. Don’t ruin.” He settled, released, and watched the deer crash away through the timber.
After the shot, Clinton couldn’t film. He couldn’t talk. He just sat there in a wild range of emotions, from shock, relief, guilt, and gratitude all braided together. “I wanted to text the guys that I’d got him, but I kept thinking to myself that I was just dreaming. Did this really just happen?”
Clinton slipped out of his treestand and went home to eat dinner with his family and just hang out. “I was just so distraught over the whole thing,” said Fawcett.
“It was all so weird. I had pretty much convinced myself that this deer had gotten the best of me, and I was ready to go hunt somewhere else. But there in the last 15 minutes, it all came together.”
Upon recovering the deer, Clinton again faced all the emotions of the moment. “I cried, I puked, and then I cried some more. It was the biggest deer of my life!”
The buck’s antler have everything you possibly dream of in a midwestern giant. Double drop tines, width, height and mass that no trail camera could ever adequately capture.
The buck taped out at 205 3/8”.
A big congrats to Clinton Fawcett on the buck of his dreams becoming a reality in the whitetail woods – and fresh memories that will no doubt last a lifetime.
