--- title: "Missouri Fourth Grader Has Already Taken Two Giant Whitetail Bucks This Season" description: "Noah Baker took a 187-inch buck with his dad during the youth season. It was his second big whitetail of the season." date: "2026-10-30" modified: "2026-10-30" authors: - name: "Bob McNally" job_title: "Contributor" link: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/authors/bob-mcnally.md" url: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/missouri-kid-takes-2-bucks/" categories: - "Big Game Hunting" - "Deer Hunting" - "Hunting" - "Whitetail Deer Hunting" tags: - "News" --- # Missouri Fourth Grader Has Already Taken Two Giant Whitetail Bucks This Season ![missouri bucks]() *Photo courtesy of \Jared Baker\* Noah Baker isn’t your typical young hunter. The Pike County, Missouri youngster is a hunting prodigy most sportsmen would be proud to call their son. “He shot his first deer at age six,” his dad, Jared Baker, tells Outdoor Life. “He lives to hunt and fish. And we’d have to think about just how many deer he’s taken since that first one when he was still in first grade.” October 25 was the last day of the Missouri early two-day youth gun deer season. Noah and Jared chose a hunting spot over a cut corn field late that afternoon near their home in Frankfort. “The wind wasn’t great, and we just set up in a hillside haystack that overlooked a cut corn patch that was well below us,” says Jared, a 37-year-old heavy equipment operator. “We set a tripod rifle stand in the haystack, put Noah’s 7mm suppressed Remington rifle on it, and watched and waited.” They got on the haystack about 4 p.m. on a hot afternoon. They hadn’t waited very long before a few small bucks and does started filtering into the corn to feed about 60 yards from where they were positioned. “We were waiting for a big buck we knew was around that I named ‘Dwayne The Rock Johnson’, because he was so big and strong,” Noah says. “The deer’s head was huge, and I wanted him.” ![noah bakers buck]() *Photo courtesy of Jared Baker* The father-son team had two big target bucks they’d watched and planned to take this year. They’d also found shed antlers from the deer. Noah had shot the smaller of the two bucks — a 155-inch 10-pointer — with his crossbow on Oct. 2. Now they were after the second buck – “Dwayne The Rock Johnson,” and it just so happened that the deer showed at 6:20 p.m. “It happened fast,” Jared says. “We saw him at 80 yards, and he went into a grass patch to look at a doe.” “I saw him first, dad was looking farther away when I spotted him,” says Noah. “Dwayne started to walk away, turning toward some smaller bucks. But dad used his grunt call, and the buck turned and looked at us.” Noah had crosshairs settled on the deer’s chest and fired at the buck standing 80 yards away. The 140-grain Berger bullet put the buck down quickly. “Noah and I just started fist pumping in the air,” said Jared. **Read Next: [Here’s Why This Giant Missouri Buck Was Still in Velvet in Late September]()** They called some friends for help getting the giant 17-point buck out of the field. They didn’t weigh it, but a taxidermist who has the buck rough green-scored the antlers at 187 inches. Noah’s other 155-inch 10-pointer also is with the same taxidermist for mounting. “I’m going to hang both of them in my bedroom,” Noah says. “One on each side of my TV screen so I can watch them whenever I’m in there.” ## Author Bob McNally has been an outdoor writer since shortly after the earth’s crust cooled. He has written 12 outdoor books, more than 5,000 outdoor magazine stories (including many for Outdoor Life) and more newspaper outdoor columns and features than there are hairs on a grizzly bear.