Greg Parker never shoots a buck on the first day.

Especially when that first day is the annual trip to a sprawling 1,000-acre farm in Woodson County, Kansas.

But this hunt was different for Parker, a 2006 Karns City graduate, and his best friend and hunting buddy, Jeremy Bowser, also a 2006 Karns City grad.

There was a buck Parker couldn’t pass up.

“(Jeremy) dropped me off and he told me to shoot a big one,” Parker said. “I said, ‘You know me, I never kill one on the first day.’”

Parker had seen the massive 19-point buck early on that first day, but it had been out of range for his bow.

Later it returned and Parker felt his heart jackhammer in his chest.

“I was shaking so bad, I thought I was going to blow it,” Parker said. “I didn’t think I could pull it back.”

The buck was just 9 yards away and when Parker released the arrow, he said he knew it was a good shot.

And that he had broken his rule of never harvesting a buck on the first day.

He didn’t mind, however.

The buck was scored at 181 3/8 — one of the biggest bucks harvested with a bow in the country and by far the biggest Parker had ever bagged.

The kill earned Parker a spot in the record books and a story in this month’s issue of Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine.

“Honestly, every young hunter dreams of something like that,” Parker said. “Every young hunter reads those magazines and thinks about how cool it would be to see their name in it.”

Parker got the buck on Nov. 6 — the first day of the hunting trip.

He spent the rest of the nine-day excursion relaxing, hunting coyotes and hanging out with the owners of the farm, close family friends of Jeremy Bowser’s clan.

Bowser, meanwhile, hit the woods trying to bag his own buck and was able to snare one on the last day of the trip.

An eight-point, the buck was also massive and made Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine as well.

Bowser and Parker have been making the trip to Kansas for 10 years.

“This was the first year both me and Jeremy both killed a buck,” Parker said. “Neither one of us was expecting anything like this.”