A Kansas cold case is solved: Deer hunter finds trophy buck he shot two years ago

Just about the time that Dusty Smart had given up hope that he would ever locate a trophy buck he shot, he located the brute.

Two years later.

Smart’s story started in 2012 when he was bow hunting on a friend’s farm near Emporia, Kan. He had seen trail-cam photos of the huge whitetail every day for two weeks during the rut, and he knew the buck was following nine does that were using a trail.

Smart set up a tree stand not far from the trail, and he was ready to use his bow to take the big boy.

“It was the day before the gun season was going to open, so I knew this was last chance,” said Smart, 37, who lives in Emporia. “I knew gun hunters were going to be on that land, and there was a chance they were going to shoot him.”

The does showed up on schedule that evening, and so did the buck. Everything was going as planned until the buck suddenly sensed something out of place.

“I know he couldn’t see me,” Smart said. “And the wind was in the right condition, so he probably couldn’t have smelled me either.

“But he knew something was wrong.”

Smart waited for the perfect shot, but finally settled for one when the buck was 45 yards away. The buck jumped when Smart released the arrow, but it still hit the target.

The deer ran off across a cut corn field, and Smart waited before he followed the blood trail. He and others searched for the big buck until midnight, then Smart took off work the next day so that could search.

He finally gave up hope.

“I would tell my friends about how big this buck was and that he had gotten away, and I could tell they thought I was making up stories” Smart said. “They were getting tired of hearing me talk about it.”

But a week ago, he got a call from a friend who had gone to a Scouting event on a farm near where Smart had been hunting. There in the shed was the skull with the antlers of a giant deer that the landowner’s boy had found while out exploring late this summer.

Smart’s friend knew immediately that it was Smart’s deer. The landowner agreed to give Smart the rack, but it wasn’t that easy.

Smart had to go through an investigation by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism to make sure the deer hadn’t been taken illegally. Then he had to get a salvage permit from the agency to take the deer.

Bottom line: Smart had his trophy deer. He took it to his friend Dan Thurston, an avid deer hunter and member of the cast for the national television show “Bow Madness,” and they scored the deer. They estimated the 28-point buck scored in the 235 range.

If the score is in that range when it is officially measured, it will rank in the top 20 for all-time non-typical whitetail bucks taken by bow in Kansas. But however it turns out, Smart is just thrilled that he has the giant buck that he never thought he’d see again.

“I went through a roller coaster of emotions,” Smart said. “I thought about losing that buck for weeks. But everything turned out great.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2014 at 8:26 PM with the headline "A Kansas cold case is solved: Deer hunter finds trophy buck he shot two years ago."