DULUTH, Minn. _ Sherrie Carlson first saw the buck in 2013. Not on the hoof. Only in a trail-camera image.
"He was a 10-pointer then, the same as he is now, just a little smaller," said Carlson, 51, of Iron River.
In Wisconsin's bow season, Carlson and her husband, Todd Carlson, always hunt together, side by side in a ground blind.
"He'll sit with me until I get my deer," Sherrie said. "Then I sit with him."
Sherrie shoots a crossbow because she lacks the strength to use a compound bow. She's been deer hunting only since 2010, when she met Todd. They were married in 2012. She put a buck on the wall in 2012 that green-scored 186. A monster. But she never wanted a buck more, nor pursued one so hard, as the 10-pointer she'd been chasing for three years near Iron River.
In 2014, the 10-pointer they came to know as "Lucky" showed up on the couple's trail cameras regularly.
"At first, he came during the night, then during the day," Sherrie said. "He was funny. He'd lie down in front of the trail camera and go to sleep."
But the buck didn't present a shot for her that year. She ended up taking a nine-pointer that year. Todd took up the hunt for the 10-pointer and had him within 40 or 50 yards twice.
"He wasn't comfortable with the shot and let him walk," Sherrie said.
