Kevin Riner had been sitting in his tree stand north of Clinton Lake for less than an hour when he was startled by the abrupt arrival of a male deer.

“He came charging right at me,” Riner said. “I didn’t have time to get jittery.”

Little did Riner, a May graduate of Perry-Lecompton High and now a freshman at Washburn University, realize the big buck sported the highest-scoring atypical antlers ever recorded on a whitetail shot with a bow and arrow in Douglas County.

The old deer Riner estimated its age at about eight years had a rack that scored 214 on the Pope & Young scale, ranking it No. 17 on the state list in that category. The 16 ahead of it were harvested in other counties, including the top-ranked deer (26778) that was taken in 1998 in Pottawatomie County.

Riner, who shot the animal a little after 6 p.m. on Oct. 11, didn’t learn the 25-point rack’s score until last Wednesday.

It took almost that long to find the deer after he shot it.

“It turned out to be a heck of an ordeal,” Riner said. “One shot hit the gut and another got him in the chest, but he ran for about 600 yards.”

Mortally wounded, the animal traveled so far Riner couldn’t find it. As darkness ap-proached, he realized he needed help so he went to his parents’ house in Lecompton and enlisted their aid along with his brother.

“We searched so long our flashlights went out,” Riner said. “We had to go back to the house and get more flashlights and get more batteries.”

Finally, after searching for more than three hours, they found the huge animal.

Riner, 18, has been hunting for four years. In the past, he has taken does during rifle season, but this was his first success with a bow and arrow and his first buck.

This is also the first year Riner has been stationed in the spot where he nailed the buck.

“Last year I hunted near that spot and saw deer movement in that area,” Riner said. “It has two creeks on either side that make a funnel-like trail. It’s my favorite spot now.”

Riner is having the head and rack mounted. The remainder was processed. The buck wasn’t weighed in the field, but probably would have registered more than 300 pounds, Riner said.

“We’ve been calling it the ‘White-Tailed Moose,'” Riner quipped.