North American Whitetail

Thirty-five years of bowhunting have taught Bill Ullrich a few things about chasing whitetails. After a few years of making a lot of mistakes, you reach a level of knowledge that moves you as a hunter to a level of wanting to challenge the oldest and smartest buck in the woods.

There is another factor, however, that even experienced hunters all too often overlook—luck. If you haven’t said it yourself, chances are you’ve heard a hunter say, “I’ll take luck anytime,” or “the harder I work, the luckier I get.” Sometimes what we call “luck” is simply slowing down long enough to listen to that small voice in the back of your head that says “turn right” or “turn left.”

On October 26, 2012, Bill had made up his mind to take off work early to spend an afternoon in the woods, and he knew exactly which tree he was headed for that afternoon. He was almost to the tree when something told him he needed to turn around and, instead, opt for a tried and true setup he had long-ago named the “good luck tree.”

“I had already walked past the tree,” Bill said, “and normally the last thing a hunter should do is backtrack. This just puts more scent on the ground past your stand. But it was just one of those feelings you get as a hunter sometimes.”

One hour and ten minutes later, he realized that was the best decision he had ever made, as he watched his arrow bury to the nock in the largest whitetail buck he had ever shot at.

The 2011 archery season had been a good one for Bill, and he had managed to harvest two respectable bucks. One of the bucks was a 9-pointer that scored in the 140s, and the other buck, taken later in the season, was a 12-pointer that scored in the 130s. After using both of his buck tags, Bill had resigned the late-season for doe management.

During one particular doe hunt, he just happened to look over his shoulder at the right time and saw a giant buck 50 yards away. He only got a glimpse of the buck as it disappeared into heavy brush, but he immediately knew two things. First, the buck was the biggest deer he had ever seen in the woods, and second, he knew where he would be hunting next season.

When the 2012 archery season arrived, Bill set out a couple of trail cameras on the relatively small piece of property he hunts in Peoria County, Ill. He makes it a habit to stay out of the woods until just before Halloween, and therefore, he had not checked the trail cameras for a couple of weeks. Since Bill hunts a small area, he does not want to spook deer early in the season.

Experience has taught him that on this particular piece of property, the last week of October seems to flip the switch and a lot of the bucks on adjacent properties suddenly start showing up on his hunting area in search of does. By the third week of October, he did not have any “shooter” bucks on his cameras. This did not really bother Bill, since he knew that the older bucks probably wouldn’t start showing up until the rut kicked in.

On Friday, October 26, Bill took off work at 2 p.m. He immediately drove to his hunting property and proceeded to go through his normal routine of getting ready to hunt. He knew that the wind was perfect for the area he hunted, and he changed into his hunting clothes, which had been recently washed with scent-free soap. He sprayed everything down with scent-free spray, grabbed his climber treestand and headed for the woods.

Placed strategically within the timber was a small food plot in which Bill had planted turnips in mid-summer. Even though there had been a drought during the summer of 2012, late summer rain had somehow resulted in a pretty good stand of turnips. On this particular day, Bill walked past the food plot and past the “good luck tree” where he had taken other bucks and headed for the back of the property. When he was about halfway to the other tree, he suddenly got the feeling that he needed to return to the “good luck tree.”

Paying credence to his instinct, Bill turned around and backtracked to the setup. By about 2:30 p.m., Bill had situated his Lone Wolf climber in the tree and was situated approximately 24 feet off the ground. Needless to say, after walking all that way and ascending the tree, he was soaked with sweat. Bill was so overheated by the time he was set up in the tree that he proceeded to remove a layer of clothing, trying to cool down before prime time arrived that evening.

Even though Bill was set up at the bottom of a ridge, a consistent breeze was blowing that evening, and just as he was considering putting his jacket back on, three does arrived on the scene. They proceeded to bed down 50 yards away, near the foot plot. Bill slowly and quietly managed to put his outer layer of clothing back on without spooking the bedded does. Ten minutes later, another doe appeared about halfway between his stand and the first trio of does. Bill ranged the doe at 35 yards, just for a point of reference. The doe moved away totally unaware of his presence.

It had only been 10-15 minutes since he spotted the last doe when movement caught Bill’s eye. A deer was approaching along the same trail the doe had been on, and Bill could barely make out antlers. By the time he had picked up his bow, the buck was close enough that Bill got a good look at him. In a split second, Bill could tell the buck was mature. He immediately reminded himself to ignore the antlers and focus on the shot.

As Bill came to full draw, the buck was quartering towards him and he picked up on the movement. The buck turned to look up at Bill but did not move. Bill lined the sight pin tight against the buck’s shoulder and released the arrow. The buck was standing in the exact spot where he had ranged the doe—35 yards.

The Carbon Express arrow, tipped with a Rocket broadhead, buried to the nock, penetrating the full length of the shaft. The buck turned and ran, then stopped about 30 yards away. Bill tried to find a hole through the brush for a follow-up shot at the buck, but there was too much brush in the way. He quietly watched the buck stand in one spot for 10-15 minutes. Then the buck turned and slowly walked out of sight.

The shot took place around 3:40 p.m., and Bill had made up his mind that he was not getting down from the tree until 5 p.m. As 5 p.m. approached, Bill couldn’t stand it any longer. He slowly and quietly got down from the tree and proceeded to where the buck had been standing at the shot. Thirty yards away, he found good blood pooled in the spot where the buck had stood for 10-15 minutes.

At this point it had been approximately an hour and a half since the shot. Bill eased over the crest of the hill where he had last seen the buck and saw a blow-down just below him. Suddenly, he saw movement in the big blow-down. The buck had stood up and was walking uphill very slowly.

With no shot opportunity, Bill watched as the buck crested the top of the hill, stopped and bedded down. Earlier, Bill had called his son, Matt, and as Bill sat quietly watching the bedded buck, Matt arrived. They both sat and watched the bedded buck, determined not to jump him again. After several minutes, the buck got to his feet and slowly moved over the crest of the hill, just out of sight.

Bill and Matt watched the area for another half-hour, then slowly climbed the hill, trying to be as quiet as possible. When they had crested the hill, they saw the buck bedded, and immediately it stood up and slowly moved off. At this point, Bill and his son very quickly backed down the hill and left the woods.

Thus began a long, sleepless night for Bill. By daylight on Saturday morning, Bill and his son were headed back to the spot where they had last seen the buck. They knew the exact spot where they had seen the buck get up just before they left the timber. When they arrived at that spot there was no blood. They slowly began to move down the ridge in the direction the buck had headed. Suddenly, only 60 yards from where they had last seen the buck, they both saw antlers.

Bill eased toward the buck very quietly, with another arrow nocked, but it rapidly became obvious that the buck was down for good this time. “I was in shock,” Bill said. “I couldn’t believe the size of the antlers.”

Not only were the antlers huge, the buck’s body was also very large. “By the time we dragged the deer to the base of the hill, and then to the truck, it was amazing how much weight that buck gained,” Bill joked.

The buck was officially measured at the Illinois Deer Classic by Boone and Crockett measurer Matt Staser. With 31 measurable points, Bill’s buck tallied a net non-typical score of 220 1/8 inches.

“I knew it was a good buck when I shot him,” Bill said, “but I had no idea that it would be my buck of a lifetime.”

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

For as long as I can remember, hunting whitetails has been more than a pastime. It’s simply been my life.

Chasing mature bucks was not just something we did, but something that defined who we were. The whitetail woods is where I’ve always felt at home, and my heroes have always been deer hunters.

My father was a man who just understood whitetails. He could walk onto a property, survey the lay of the land and walk over to a tree and say, “This one, Deaner. Get the stands. This is the tree to set up in.” It seemed effortless for him. Year after year, I watched my dad take fantastic bucks. By the age of 55, he had some 35 Pope & Young whitetails to his credit, but Number 36 was the most special of all of his P&Y bucks to me.

By that time, I was filming our own hunts, or at least trying to film them. That year, on a cold November afternoon, everything was perfect. It was just one of “those days.” That evening, I filmed my father take a tremendous, old 160-class 4×4 with his bow. My father never set foot in the whitetail woods again. Shortly after sharing that hunt with me, at far too young an age, my hero passed away. My father spent his life in the deer woods and was one of the most successful whitetail bowhunters I have ever known, but in all his years, he had never had an opportunity at a truly “once-in-a-lifetime” whitetail.

The following deer season without dad was difficult, but that just drove me to spend more time in the woods hunting, continuing to live our passion. I was hunting with my dad’s old friend, Steve Csizmar. Like my father, Steve’s passion was the deer themselves—not just the size of the rack or the score, but a love and appreciation for this incredible animal.

That same appreciation led me back to filming, so that I could share with others what we loved so much. I was fortunate enough to have a good friend, Jason Peterson, who produces a television show called “Hunting Canada and Beyond.” As my passion for filming grew, Steve and I decided we wanted to film a whitetail bowhunting DVD, and Jason had the knowledge to guide us through the process. Two years later, we produced a video called “Full Draw Whitetails.”

The more we filmed, the more I loved it, so Jason began airing our deer hunts on his TV show, but I was filming more hunts that he had room for. Before long, we all teamed up to build a dedicated whitetail hunting show that was to not be based on seeing how many outfitters we could hunt with in a season, but rather to showcase our hunts, from start to finish, sometimes spanning years.

The concept was to capture the entire process—knocking on doors for permission to hunt land, scouting, setting up, passing up bucks year after year and sharing all our successes (and failures), while trying to capture the biggest whitetails ever hunted on film.

Nearly a year later to the day, the first season of “Canadian Whitetail Television” aired in Canada, featuring two deer over 200 inches and multiple other great, old bucks. Since that rookie year, the show has continued to grow in leaps and bounds, with its roots still based in hunting big, old, mature whitetails and telling the stories that go with them.

In 2009, we had started having encounters and getting trail camera photos of a small 4×4 whose back tines were a little bladed. The buck was likely a 3-year-old but nothing overly special. He was just like dozens of different young bucks we would see every year. We carried on filming that fall and finished off the season. The next summer, we were back in the woods, checking to see which bucks had made it through the harsh winter.

One evening, while I was sitting on the edge of an alfalfa field, a great buck stepped out. Looking closer, I noted a nice drop-tine hanging off his main beam. I looked again and, sure enough, the back G2s had bladed a bit more and split. It was the small 4×4 buck from the previous season, but he had added some serious antler. That night, we started calling him “Droppy.”

For the rest of the summer and through the fall hunting season, we were able to capture some great footage of him. He looked like a young deer, and we all knew the potential he could have if left alone. We went through all of our old trail camera pictures and confirmed we had pictures of him back a couple of years. We were certain he was now only 4 years old, immediately putting him on the “pass list.”

Another year later, during the summer of 2011, after several nights out looking, we had not yet caught a glimpse of Droppy, and we were starting to worry that the winter—or predators—had gotten him. We slipped into the stretch of timber that Droppy had been using for the past few years to pull the card from our Spypoint camera, and there he was. “Wow,” was the only thing I said.

He had grown drastically again. It was immediately apparent that we needed to take a better look at deer this year. He was 5 years old now and surely had another year or two of growth in him, but we wanted to get an up-close look at him before we decided to take him or leave him alone for another year.

October and part of November passed without another encounter with Droppy, and then it happened. I checked two trail cameras in the area, and for the first time in four years, there were no pictures of Droppy. It was nearing the rut, and I told myself that he was just off searching for does. Three days later, a local landowner informed us of a nice drop-tine buck that another hunter in the area had shown him … in the back of his truck. A couple more questions removed all doubt. In our minds, Droppy was dead.

A few days later, I took a great buck that we had a lot of history with and that had often traveled with Droppy, a 180-class buck we called “Sticker Sam.” But what happened that day, well, I wouldn’t believe it if we hadn’t filmed it.

We were filming the recovery of Sticker Sam when a fleeting deer caught my eye. I looked over suddenly, and right there, 100 yards away, just cresting a hill on his retreat, was Droppy! I couldn’t believe it. I simply tipped my hat to Droppy as, one way or another, he had beaten me this year.

At the end of the season, again, we heard of a big drop-tine deer being shot in the general area. But we weren’t going to be fooled so easy this time. It wasn’t until late December turned to January, then February, with no sightings or pictures of Droppy, that we began to worry. In February, Steve went in to pull the trail cameras for the rest of the winter. My phoned buzzed, and it was a text from Steve, that simply read, “Droppy lives.” There was only one picture of him, but that’s all we needed.

In the early spring of 2012, I started looking for Droppy again. This time, we found him in May, in the same patch of timber he had frequented in the past. By the end of June, we were starting to realize what a deer he was turning into. His typical frame was huge, and he carried big, split brows and matching flyers on both sides but his droptine was gone this year. We decided that this deer would consume my season until we were able to get an encounter with him.

The summer wore on, and it was soon time to set up so we could get a look at Droppy in person once the season arrived. The old spot where we were currently getting pictures of him had not worked well the year before. This year, by the time he was hitting the field we were on the edge of, it was often late or after dark on the trail camera.

Steve suggested we move to the south side of the string of woods. We had contemplated doing that last year as well but were afraid of bumping the buck when trying to get to the blind. The only potential set-up spot there was about 200 yards from where we believed Droppy was bedding.

We decided to try it and went in to set up our ground blind and trail camera. A couple of weeks later, we returned to check the camera, and he was right there, every single day. To top it off, he was coming by in good light. When I got home that day, I sat and looked at the pictures of Droppy on my computer in complete amazement.

He was everything a dream buck could be, and more. He was 6 years old now, and we knew there was a good chance he had one more year of growth left in him, but my mind was completely consumed. I knew that this would be the most incredible deer I would ever have the opportunity to hunt and that this year I was going to put everything into just that, hunting Droppy.

Everything looked good—almost too good. Nearly every evening, he would pass by the trail camera within a 15-minute window, but 10 days before season opened, Droppy’s little piece of paradise was invaded by a few hundred head of cattle. Droppy was gone.
The cattle were gone too by opening day, but Droppy was still missing. We looked in a few likely spots for him, but nothing we did produced any information on where he was.

A week later, we were trying to decide whether to pull the blind from the spot where we had so frequently caught pictures of Droppy before the cattle had pushed him out. I snuck into the spot and pulled the memory card on my camera. Sure enough, there he was, back to his regular routine almost to the minute. I couldn’t believe it.

For the next couple weeks, we only had a few nights where the wind was right to get in and hunt the blind, but we were not having any encounters. Knowing we had a whole season of TV shows to produce and other deer that we wanted to hunt, I made a grave mistake. The next night, I sent one of our cameramen, Ritchy, with a friend to hunt a spot that we felt they had a great chance of connecting with another good buck we had been watching for the last four years as well, and I headed into the “Droppy blind” alone, intending to film myself.

Right at last light, as I was getting packed up for the night, Droppy made an appearance. The light was too low to shoot or get good quality footage, but I wanted to get any footage of him possible. I balanced my bow on my knee and got the camera rolling on him.

Droppy walked right by where I had the camera positioned on the tripod, and then, when attempting to pan the camera to follow him, I let my bow slip off my knee. The bow struck the tripod and spooked Droppy. My whole world crumbled in an instant. I had just scared the buck of my dreams, and I knew there was a good chance I had just severely reduced our odds of getting an opportunity at him.

Later that night, I reviewed the grainy footage that I had gotten and realized that when the bow hit the tripod, Droppy had only made two leaps and looked back. Fortunately, when he turned to see what had made the noise, he wasn’t looking at the blind. He then simply walked away, allowing me to retain some small amount of hope.

One week later, I slipped in to check the Spypoint camera again, and I had gotten about as lucky as any hunter could get. The “mishap” hadn’t phased Droppy one bit, and he had been by several times since. The winds were right, so that afternoon, we headed back in to sit the blind.

On that evening, October 6, we headed into the blind and, like so many times before, got things set up for the afternoon. Ritchy got his camera equipment ready, I set up my Ozonics unit in its usual place, and we sat back in anticipation of what might happen in the hunt ahead.

Early in the evening, a couple of small bucks made an appearance and were milling around in front of us. While it was still early, one shot his head up to look up the channel to the east. I instantly had an odd feeling that Droppy was there. I leaned forward to look to the east, and, sure enough, there he was, 200 yards away and coming towards us. Ritchy couldn’t see him yet, but I tapped his knee and whispered to get ready.

As Droppy closed the distance, Ritchy leaned forward with the camera, and I heard him mumble, “Oh, my Lord,” as Droppy walked into frame at 100 yards. It was our first up-close look at him in broad daylight. Weaving between the big timber with the sunlight glinting off his antlers, Droppy was a breathtaking sight. He would walk 10 yards, then stop and survey the area, then come another 15.

Before long, he was at only 18 yards and approaching our shooting lane. Ritchy knew I would be shooting the second I had the opportunity, and I drew my bow when he was mere steps from where I could shoot. I came to full draw, anchored, and waited for Droppy to take four more steps. I settled my pin on him and released.

Droppy jumped and took three bounds away, quite slowly and calmly. Ritchy was still filming as Droppy looked back at the blind. Droppy took one more step and fell to the ground. The deer that I had dreamed about, that my dad had dreamed about, was down, only 35 yards away. I had expected a wall of excitement to hit me, but it did not, and it quickly became clear to me why.

I had ended the hunt. I had often wondered that if we actually got Droppy, what we would say or do after the shot, but when Droppy went down and Ritchy panned the camera back to me, I just asked him to please shut it down for a moment. It wasn’t a moment for high fives, yelling or jumping up and down. It was simply a moment for which I had waited a lifetime and a moment in which I was flooded with appreciation. We were fortunate enough to have been able to watch and hunt a deer like Droppy.

Ritchy, being the dedicated cameraman he is, of course, refused to shut the camera down. We packed up in a hurry and walked to the deer. I was in disbelief as we stood just feet from Droppy. I knelt down, picking the old fella’s head up, and was in awe of what a beautiful animal he was.

It was only October 6, but already I couldn’t have gotten my arms around his neck. His face was grey and scarred, and he still carried a proud look. It was an incredibly bittersweet feeling. I was excited that I had accomplished something I had wanted so badly, yet there was also a feeling of sadness, that after years of watching and filming Droppy, we would never again check a trail camera and see his picture.

Shortly after, our hunting partners, Steve and Jason, showed up, and we all discussed how he looked in person compared to the trail camera pictures. We had been pretty close on our estimates, but we didn’t really realize how massive his typical frame was. Now that he was on the ground in front of us, it was obvious that the typical frame was in the 200-inch category as a 5×5, and with the split browtines, matching flyers and other abnormals, he would gross over 230 inches.

Even though my father wasn’t there to enjoy watching and hunting Droppy, he is with me always in my passion and appreciation for the greatest big game animal ever to walk, and for that, I am forever grateful.

Editor’s Note: Grossing over 231 inches as a non-typical, Droppy is the largest known whitetail to have been taken on film. You can watch this hunt and many others on Dean Partridge’s television show, “Canadian Whitetail Television,” which airs in the U.S. on Sportsman Channel and in Canada on WildTV.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Sunrise was to be at 7:36 a.m., and it was 6:50 when I slid into the pop-up ground blind on Nov. 19, 2012. The mixed coniferous bush near Kenora, Ontario, was still draped in darkness, and I soon had settled in for a dawn-to-dusk hunt.

My partner Chris Savage and I had spent the last five weeks archery hunting several spots near Kenora, trying to pattern a quality deer. Even though our eight trail cameras and on-the-ground scouting in several other spots had shown some respectable whitetails, we were concentrating most of our time in this particular location. And for good reason: It was home to a giant buck we’d named “Kong.”

Now, despite the number of trail cameras we had out, we’d not yet snagged a photo of the monster. But we knew he was here.

No matter where you are, locating a big whitetail usually involves a lot of work. Through all our scouting efforts, as of early last October we had located one really good whitetail. Chris and I were fine-tuning our setups around that 170-class deer when a friend and co-worker, Jason, stumbled across something of even more interest.

Jason stepped into the office one day in early October and told me he had just seen “a really big buck” while cruising a local back road. In my experience, a lot of people that see an average 8-pointer on the hoof sometimes refer to a deer like this as “a really big buck,” so when Jason dropped that comment, I honestly didn’t pay much attention.

However, I did respond with “Hey, you didn’t get a picture of that deer, did ya?”

Surprisingly, when I asked, he answered, “Yeah, I did get one in fact.”

Jason then showed me the photo on his iPhone. It was the best deer picture I had seen in years. The buck was a giant! I immediately called Chris and emailed him the photo. We were excited and agreed that this deer could be in the 180-class. And so began the quest for Kong.

The area in which he’d photographed the buck consisted of a lot of private property, with few houses and mostly solid bush. Access was limited. We got as close as we could by getting permission from a local landowner friend to hunt his parcel, but we were still a mile from where we believed Kong’s “bedroom” was.

Chris and I spent a couple days walking the property, which consisted of solid bush, mixed deciduous and coniferous growth with an old skidder trail through the middle. The trail ended at a large 25-acre swamp.

There was also a ridge that ran from the swamp back to the main road, which was about 3/4 of a mile away. The swamp was the key. These are great barriers, funneling animal travel around them. We decided to set up about 125 yards from the swamp, which would force most animals cruising around the swamp to pass close to our location. There was still 125 yards of solid bush between the swamp and us, but in my experience, you’re better off giving a bit of distance from these large obstacles.

We set up with the ridge to the south of us and the skidder trail to our north. With this being such a low area, we knew scent control would be an issue. It seemed ideal for a “doublewide” pop-up blind. We set the blind only 20 yards to the main trail, still within good bow range.

In front of our stand was also a thick area of balsams, which appeared to be a bedding area. We tried to position ourselves in a high-traffic area, but close to a bedding location, so that when the rut kicked in, hopefully cruising bucks could easily locate does nearby.

While our strategy was simple, we believed it had a good chance of proving effective. We weren’t sure where Kong’s bedroom was, but we felt he would breed all available does close to him first, then eventually begin drifting farther and farther through all phases of the rut, eventually passing through our spot. And at that moment, hopefully one of us would be there.

Chris and I do most of our hunting from climber-style tree stands. However, this location was ideal for a two-man pop-up. We hunted it consistently for 5-6 weeks, hour by hour trading turns with the bow or video camera. During that span we saw some nice bucks and a lot of other deer but never laid eyes on Kong.

The pre-rut came and went, then the peak. Finally, it was dipping into the post-rut, with still no sightings or even trail camera photos of Kong. But as each phase of the rut passed, Chris and I remained positive that at some point Kong finally would show himself, and that one of us would get an opportunity.

I hunted solo on Nov. 19, as Chris was coming off his first night shift. The forecast was for a nice late-fall day, with a slightly below freezing morning giving way to an afternoon high of around 5 C (41 F).

Near 11:30 a.m., I was thinking of food; then I heard an animal approaching from my left. As I slid forward and peeked to the left, I saw a big buck approaching on the trail that would bring him directly across in front of me at 20 meters. I positioned myself for a shot as the buck appeared directly in range. When I bleated, he stopped.

The buck was a beauty we had never seen, even on trail camera. He sported a wide, fairly heavy rack with 9 or 10 points. One brow tine looked to be 6-8 inches long, the other maybe 3 inches. He was a cool-looking deer, but not Kong. I put my bow back on my knees and let him pass. The buck’s arrival buoyed my confidence; he had left his home area and showed up here, looking for a doe in heat. Maybe Kong would as well.

I saw no more deer until 1:20 p.m., when a doe and her fawn drifted in and began feeding around me. I was unsure if I had seen this particular pair earlier that morning. I kept still so as not to alarm them.

Maybe five minutes later, the doe’s head shot up, and she seemed to stare right at me. Then I realized she was looking past me, toward a thick hill behind my blind. I turned around and slowly and quietly pulled the window covering over to peek out. I could hear an animal walking. Then I spotted a lot of long tines parting the trees about 45 yards away. It was Kong!

He turned and walked parallel to me, cruising the adjacent ridge. He never stopped and quickly drifted out of sight, traveling west as he cruised for does. Then, as quickly as he’d arrived he was gone from sight, the sound of his hooves in the crusted snow diminishing to silence.

Should I snort wheeze? Should I grunt? What should I do? So many thoughts were swirling through my mind. But rather than call, I turned back to look out front.

The doe and her fawn went back to feeding. At that point I was willing to wait to see if Kong would come back on his own. I knew he was cruising for does, and I had one directly in front of me.

Again the doe’s head snapped up, staring directly down the trail the other buck had walked in on that morning. I heard approaching footsteps in the snow…and then they stopped.

I grasped my PSE and peered out to the left. There Kong stood, about 35 meters away, staring directly at the doe and fawn. He was a giant, and my heart immediately began pounding even harder than before. His rack was taller than any I had ever seen in the bush. He was beautiful.

I slid back and focused straight ahead, waiting and trying to compose myself. I heard his steps again in the crusty snow to my left, and in a moment I could see Kong begin to fill the front window of my blind. The doe and her fawn bolted to my right. He stopped directly in front of my blind, broadside at 20 meters—then suddenly bolted toward the doe.

Fortunately, Kong quickly skidded to a stop again, quartering away from me. The range was still 20 meters. I’ll always remember the hard, adrenaline-charged draw of my bow; I was so shaken I could barely pull it back. But once at full draw, I put my 20-meter pin behind his shoulder and let fly.

As my Lumenok went out of sight, the deer bolted, crashing out of sight into some thick tag alders and birch trees to my left. I sat in disbelief, knowing I had just shot the giant we had been after for so long!

I sat in shock for a few minutes, trying to connect the scraps of what had just happened into a coherent thought. Then I began texting a few key people. First, of course, was Chris. “I just killed Kong!!!!!” my text to him read.

Next to get a text was my wonderful and ever-patient wife Beth. The third text went to my dad. The latter was the only one who responded immediately, calling my phone—but I wanted to remain quiet in the blind, I did not take his a call. We texted back and forth for a couple of minutes, as I tried to describe this amazing hunt.

Then my phone began to vibrate. It was Chris, so I decided to pick up.

“Are you serious?” he asked, followed by, “Why didn’t you call me?” and finally, “WOW!”

Chris was soon en route with another good friend and avid outdoorsman, Jeff Gustafson. I sat until 2 p.m., giving Kong a full 30 minutes to expire, even though I was totally confident in my shot. While I sat there, enjoying the moment, I decided to call and share the moment with my wife. I knew I had taken a buck of a lifetime, and it was an amazing time for me.

At 2 p.m., I climbed out of our blind and located my arrow, which was covered in beautiful, bright, lung blood. I placed it in my quiver and began to follow the heavy blood trail. It was a short one; Kong lay in the thick tags and birch trees where I had lost sight of him. He’d traveled about 50 meters before expiring: as clean a kill as one could hope for.

I sat beside the deer, admiring his 17 points. All of his G-2 and G-3 tines split, and there was some junk off his brows. He was heavy, high, dark and beautiful. I sat in disbelief that after hunting for 23 years, I was lucky enough to take the buck of a lifetime. A lot of great hunters never get the opportunity I was given, and for that I am truly grateful.

Following the 60-day drying period, I had Kong officially scored. He grossed 197 2/8 inches and had an incredibly low 2 inches of side-to-side deductions on the typical frame, yielding a net score of 195 2/8. This not only makes the 195-inch minimum for B&C’s all-time record books, it ranks him No. 5 with a bow all-time in Ontario.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

When just about everything that can go wrong with the pursuit of a huge buck really does go wrong, it’s easy to get discouraged. But sometimes, persistence wins out in the end. Just ask dedicated bowhunter Bo Russell. The huge Iowa non-typical he arrowed last season is a testimony to the rewards of smart scouting and hard work. Not to mention being adaptable enough to overcome some outside interference—including a crew of archeologists!

A Little History
Bo is a dedicated hunter who spends a lot of time getting ready for deer season. He’s been known to pick out a certain buck and focus strictly on him—for better or for worse.

“I got trail camera pictures of a big 11-pointer in September of 2011 and set sights on shooting him,” he says. “I hunted hard all season but never did see the deer. In fact, I was so focused on shooting that buck, I didn’t shoot a deer that year at all.

“The following spring (2012) I searched high and low for the buck’s sheds but came up empty-handed. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else found them, either.”

Scouting
“I normally start running four to five trail cameras in early August, mainly set up on scrapes, rub lines and food sources,” Bo says. “Once I’ve located a couple of mature bucks, I keep my distance and scout primarily with binoculars or a spotting scope,” Bo says.

“Aerial photos are also helpful when scouting new ground. Not only do I use them to understand the lay of the land, but also the surrounding properties. It helps me determine where the natural funnels and bedding areas are located. And those spots generally make the best stand sites, too.”

The Layout
Some hunters believe you need a lot of land if you want to take home a lot of antler. Bo knows that’s not necessarily the case.

“This particular piece of ground is only about 50 acres,” he says. “With the exception of a couple draws and a pond, it’s primarily flat. It’s actually a tree farm that has grown up over the years and is really thick cover now. The deer have made it their primary bedding area.

“Most of the trees aren’t very big, so finding one big enough for a stand in the right location isn’t that easy,” Bo continues. “It’s so thick I can’t see more than 40 or 50 yards through it. My best stand is located on along the fringes of the pines, where there are a few bigger trees. A cornfield surrounding the property was the primary food source (last year).”

A Difficult Start
Despite knowing there were some good bucks in the area, Bo wasn’t all that confident as he looked ahead to the 2012 archery season.

“I was on a two-year dry spell and hadn’t shot a buck,” he explains. “To make matters worse, I had started a new job about a year ago and didn’t have any vacation time. Other than the weekends, I was constrained to hunting the afternoons. My plan was to shower at work, then head straight for the stand from there.

“Early in the second week of October I pulled the memory cards from my trail cameras on the tree farm,” Bo said. “When I brought the pictures up on the computer, I couldn’t believe what I saw. There were pictures of a huge buck with a club-shaped drop tine on the left side, and he had 18 or 19 points. I nicknamed the buck ‘Southpaw’ and made up my mind to hunt him and settle for nothing less.

“I thought about the big buck all the time,” Bo said. “In fact, I started dreaming about him three or four times a week. It was crazy. From that point on I hunted every evening after work, and both morning and evening on the weekends. There’s no doubt, I was obsessed with the buck.”

First Sighting
“It was Oct. 26 when I got my first look at the buck,” the bowhunter notes. “Four does came meandering out of the pine trees to the north. They hung up about 40 yards out and started acting nervous and stomping around. Even though they were upwind, I suspected the wind was swirling and carrying my scent under the trees. For sure they knew something wasn’t quite right and eventually walked off and out of sight.

“I had just made a few blind grunts, and a couple minutes later I heard thrashing noises back in the thick cover of the pines,” Bo says of the first time he actually laid eyes on a colossal buck he called “Southpaw.”

“It sounded like a buck raking a tree and busting branches,” the bowhunter says of that initial sighting. “Heavy steps coming through the timber told me it was a buck closing the distance. Shortly after that, I spotted the unmistakable drop tine through the thick brush.

“Having a deer of that caliber closing the distance had me nervous, to say the least,” Bo admits. “Call it what you like, but it was a clear case of buck fever.

“When the buck reached the exact spot where the does caught my wind, he came to an abrupt stop. He jerked his head up and started sniffing the wind. It was a 40-yard shot, but there was just too much brush in the way. I thought to myself, I’ve just ruined the stand and any chances of shooting this deer.

“About that same time, he let out a loud snort and trotted back towards the thick cover,” Bo continues. “He snorted at least four or five more times before it got quiet. I was just sick about the whole ordeal, but sat until dark before climbing down.

2nd Sighting
“Oct. 28 found me heading to the same general area, but to a stand within eyesight of the cornfield,” Bo says. “The field had just been picked, so I figured it would be my best bet.

“It was just getting light when three does came out of the pine trees and walked into the cornfield, maybe 100 yards away. They started acting funny, looking back toward the pine grove. I figured something was following behind.

“Not long after, I spotted movement along the timber edge. I took a closer look through the binoculars and realized it was the drop-tine buck. I was excited, to say the least.

“I watched the buck for a good half-hour pushing the does around the field,” Bo continues. “Eventually they all ran back into the pines and disappeared. I figured they were bedded down for the day. Rather than risk bumping the buck leaving or coming back, I decided to sit
all day.”

3rd Sighting
Knowing a big buck is nearby always makes it easier to stay on stand. And in this case, the hunter’s patience was rewarded with yet another sighting of his target trophy.

“There wasn’t much movement until 15 minutes before dark,” Bo says. “That’s when Southpaw came walking out of the pines behind the does. He wasn’t pushing the does, but instead just hanging out in the field. Eventually the does started meandering in my direction, but he just stayed in the field.

“It was getting close to the end of shooting hours, so I made a couple of soft grunts, attempting to draw him closer. He started coming but made a wide circle downwind.”

With Bo’s stand being inside the timber’s edge, light was fading rapidly. By the time the buck came within bow range, conditions were marginal.

“He stood right beneath the stand, grunting and thrashing trees,” Bo says. “I wanted to take the shot, but it was just too risky under the low-light conditions. Eventually it grew too dark to see, but I could still hear him. It was agonizing. Rather than take a chance bumping the buck walking out too soon, I sat for well over an hour before climbing down.”

By now, Southpaw had become a full-blown obsession. “Hardly a night went by that I didn’t dream about the buck,” Bo claims. “In fact, one night I actually dreamed that I killed him. Waking up that morning and realizing I hadn’t was absolutely depressing.”

Archaeologists Invade
“I took Halloween evening off to take the kids trick-or-treating,” Bo remembers. “On the way home from work I drove by my hunting area and saw an excavator and bulldozer parked near the field entrance. There was also a truck and several people in the field near my stand where the big drop-tine buck had been coming out.

“I was pretty mad and drove back to find out what they were up to,” Bo adds. “They told me they were with the University of Iowa Archeologist Society. The field was a possible site for a new highway coming through, and they would be doing survey work, excavating the ground for the next several days.

“Needless to say, I was pretty bummed out and wondered if anything else could possibly go wrong.”

Change of Plans
As hard as it might have been for Bo to keep a positive outlook on the quest for this buck, he wasn’t yet ready to throw in the towel.

“I have a couple other stands on the opposite side of the property,” he points out. “Considering the facts, I didn’t have much choice but to hunt one of them. For the next week I hunted my stand near the pond. I saw a few deer that week, including two bucks that hadn’t been seen before.” But Southpaw wasn’t among them.

“The archeologist crew took Sunday off, so that morning I decided to hunt the stand near the excavating site. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a single deer.”

“Sunday afternoon found me heading back to the same stand. The field was pretty torn up (from the team’s digging), and I remember thinking to myself that it couldn’t get much worse. Those thoughts had barely passed when two black Labs came running through the timber and across the field. Deer were running everywhere, but not the big one.”

By now, Bo couldn’t be blamed for feeling he was snakebit in the quest. But he soon found encouragement.
“Totally bummed out, I called my Uncle Gary on the way home and told him what had just happened. Gary said, ‘Good things come to those who pray.’ He was probably right, so that’s what I did.”

The Secret is Out
“Minus a couple close friends, I hadn’t told anyone about Southpaw,” Bo says. “However, after the archeology crew moved in, there were two vehicles parked down the hill just about every day.

“On Nov. 5, one of those hunters approached me with trail cam pictures of Southpaw working a scrape at 7:30 that morning. With the rut approaching, the buck was becoming increasingly visible during the daylight. I must admit, that had me more than just a little worried. The secret was out, and it was just a matter of time before someone shot the buck.”

The Payoff
For Bo, the good news was that the calendar was becoming more favorable for buck sightings. The bad was that deer patterns still were stirred up from all the recent human activity.

“The stand I chose (on November had only been hunted once all season,” the bowhunter remembers. “Although the spot looked good when the stand was hung, I had absolutely no confidence hunting it. Nevertheless, it was time to change things up and try something different.

“Instead of going into the area the same way, I parked in a different location and took a different route to the stand,” Bo says. “I arrived at the stand around 3:00 without bumping any deer, so that was a plus.

“Two days before I had cut the tarsal gland off my neighbor’s buck,” he says. “So before settling in, I hung it 20 yards upwind of the stand. With any luck it would give the dominant buck the idea that a rival buck had invaded his territory. If nothing else, it would make a good cover scent.”

For the first hour Bo saw no deer, and he spent most of that time pondering how to get the buck during late muzzleloader season. But as he was about to find out, there would be no need for such strategizing.

“Around 4 p.m., I ranged a couple of trails,” he recalls. “The first was a clearing 49 yards away. The second was 25 yards straight out in front of me. Nothing was happening, so I decided to grunt a couple of times, and followed up with a doe bleat.

“A few minutes later I looked down to check the time, and when I looked back up, I spotted the big antler frame coming through the timber,” Bo says. “It was Southpaw, and he was heading in my direction.

“He was walking slowly down the trail previously ranged at 49 yards. As he continued, I kept telling myself to concentrate on the shot, not the antlers. When he got to the 25-yard trail, he turned ever so slightly and continued toward the clearing.

“Knowing it would likely be the last time I’d see the buck, I was committed to taking the shot,” Bo continues. “Two steps before the clearing, I came to full draw. And the second his vitals were exposed, I settled the pin and hit the release.

“At the sound of the string he lunged downward, but not far enough. The arrow struck the spine, and he dropped to the ground. Instinctively, I nocked another arrow and finished him off.”

Finally, all of that time and effort put into getting a crack at Southpaw had resulted in an opportunity. And Bo had made the most of it.

“I could see him lying there, 50 yards away,” the bowhunter recalls. “At that point I was shaking so bad I had to sit down for fear of falling out of the tree. A few minutes later I climbed down for a closer look. I was in disbelief—that is, until I grabbed his antlers. That’s when reality sank in. I had shot the buck of my dreams, literally.

“He had great mass, and I counted 19 points, including a 12-inch forked drop tine on the left side. I sat
for the longest time admiring his antlers and reliving the events from the past two seasons leading up to that moment. It was the experience of a lifetime.”

Bo’s wife, Terra, got the first call. Then, the hunter phoned his friend, Ben Thomson, and Bo’s brother, Luke. Both soon were on their way to help get the deer out. When they arrived at the Russell residence, “There were a bunch of people at the house,” Bo says. “About half of them I didn’t even know. But they had heard about the giant and came out to see it.”

Eventually, more became known. “I later learned that a young lady shot the buck in 2011 about a mile south of where I was hunting,” Bo says. “The arrow hit the right shoulder blade and didn’t get any penetration. That might explain why I didn’t see the deer during the 2011 season.”

Interestingly, Bo found a pocket of infection under the hide on the deer’s right shoulder, as well as marks from that 3-blade broadhead. Did the injury to the right shoulder in ’11 cause the deer to grow the drop tine on the left side in ’12? Nobody knows for sure.

Lots of Antler
In March, Bo had his rack officially measured at the Iowa Deer Classic. The giant had a gross score of 246 4/8 inches and a net of 231 4/8. That made him the second-largest bow kill entered from last season. And likely one of the hardest earned.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

I usually write one of two types of deer-hunting features. Many are about my own experiences; the rest are stories related to me by people I didn’t know before interviewing them. But this one is different.

The hunter involved is my close friend Jason Tuttle, and I actually got to live this story along with him—even though I wasn’t hunting the buck he ended up shooting. I was able to see the ups and downs of this very long pursuit as I talked to Jason before and after virtually every hunt over two seasons, helped him check trail cameras and move stands on occasion, and was as close to the action as I could be without sitting in the stand with him. In other words, I had great seats for this dramatic hunt. I only hope I can do his story justice.

Jason is a firefighter in Lexington, Ky., and as he is also a serious deer and turkey hunter. His “24 on/48 off” schedule affords him a lot of time in the field. Jason hunts mature whitetails, and he runs trail cameras religiously.

In 2009, a very nice 2.5-year-old 10- pointer showed up on camera, and Jason mentally noted him as a potential future trophy. But my friend had no idea how this young buck would come to affect his life.

Jason was hunting a 120-acre farm. On such properties, it is not unusual to get a buck on camera, but then never see him again. It is tough trying to manage deer on small acreages, especially those surrounded by hunted properties. So when the deer showed up again in 2010, as a 3.5-year-old, Jason was pleased. And when the same buck showed up in July 2011 as a definite shooter, Jason was understandably excited. The buck had thrown a fork on his left G-3 tine, and my friend estimated him to be well into the 150-class range. It was time to get serious about hunting the deer.

The trail cameras had turned up one curious fact: The buck somehow had lost his left eye during the past eight months. That eye was “glassed over,” and it was very evident in the infrared night photos. The nickname “Cyclops” seemed quite appropriate, and it stuck.

During August 2011 the buck was feeding regularly in a ridgetop alfalfa field. A single oak with a couple cedars covering much of it stands right in the middle of the plot, making for a great stand location. It was here on opening day of Kentucky’s bow season that Jason had his first encounter with the Cyclops.

The buck came into the alfalfa with plenty of shooting light, and he ended up 40 yards from Jason’s stand in the big oak. The bowhunter never was able to get his bow and get turned completely around to take a shot, though, because there were a number of other deer much closer; he knew he’d have been picked off, spooking the whole lot. The mature buck eventually fed out of range and disappeared.

Cyclops continued to show up on trail camera virtually every night in the alfalfa field, but now he was coming in after dark. So Jason put out six cameras around the alfalfa, trying to determine where the deer was coming from. He figured if he knew the trail the buck was using, he could set a stand back in the woods a couple of hundred yards and catch him during shooting hours.

It took a few days, but the surveillance worked. Soon, Jason was fairly sure he had the approach figured out. He set his tree stand 25 yards from the trail he thought the buck was using on a severely steep hillside. Then, when the wind was perfect, he climbed in for an evening sit.

As if on cue, a full half-hour before dark Jason saw deer heading up the trail. In all there were three bucks: two younger 8-pointers and Jason’s target 11-pointer. The small bucks came through and headed toward Jason’s stand, but the big guy hung back a little. He eventually worked to inside of 25 yards from Jason, but when he stopped, all the hunter could see was his lower legs. The buck had stopped where, due to the steep hill angle, a large maple branch in full foliage blocked his vitals.

Call it the sixth sense of a mature buck, but for whatever reason, he got a little antsy and finally just turned around and went back down the trail the way he had come. The two smaller bucks followed him back down the hollow.

Jason continued to get a lot of trail cam photos of Cyclops, but throughout the rest of the 2011 season he never physically saw the buck again. In March of 2012, Jason found one of the buck’s sheds, and he had been right on in his estimation of the Cyclops’ score. Measuring the shed, figuring the other side and giving a moderate spread, we estimated the buck would gross 157 inches.

When Cyclops showed back up in July of 2012 on trail camera, Jason and I were both astonished. The buck had really blown up. He had put on a lot of tine length, both G-3s forked, and he had a couple other small kickers off the bases of the G-2s and G-3s. We were blown away that the buck was still alive at 5.5 years when he had lived his entire life in an area of such small properties.

Cyclops was very regular on trail cam through July and August, and Jason had worked his schedule with vacation time so he could hunt every day for the first two weeks of season. To me, this is where the story really gets good.

Jason set up a couple of stands in the field where the buck was feeding in the evenings, and he was bound and determined to hunt him only on perfect winds. Opening evening he sat in a stand with the wind in his face, but the buck did not show. The next day, when he checked his camera, he found that the buck had fed in front of his other stand location in broad daylight.

On the second afternoon of bow season, we experienced a torrential thunderstorm. Jason and I both went to hunt, but with all the lightning we climbed out of our stands. We sat in our trucks and talked on cell phones about what to do, but the radar looked terrible, so both of us decided to throw in the towel and go home. Of course an hour before dark, the storm passed and the sun popped out.

You guessed it, when Jason checked the camera the next day, the buck had come out 20 yards from his stand after the rain stopped. My friend was 0 for 2.

On the eighth day of season, Jason had a replay of the opener. He went to one stand because of wind direction, and the trail cam revealed that the buck had showed at his other stand. After that, the buck did not show up again in daylight until September 21st and 22nd at a creek crossing where he was coming in from another property.

For three weeks after that, Jason got fairly regular photos of the buck in a couple of locations, but there were no more daylight photos until Oct. 16. Cyclops showed up at this spot in daylight each day through the 19th. But Jason wasn’t in the stand any of those days.

The early muzzleloader season was the weekend of Oct. 20-21, so Jason and I went in at midday to set up a new stand. He hunted there both days of muzzleloader season, but with no luck. But wouldn’t you know? On Oct. 23, Cyclops showed up again in daylight at that stand.

Jason had pretty well decided this would be the stand from which he would kill the buck if it ever happened. So his approach now began to revolve around waiting for the right wind to let him hunt there.

One afternoon about this time, we sat down in my garage with a lot of trail cam photos, a calculator and notebook and made our best attempt at scoring the buck. Trying to be as realistic as possible, we came up with a gross score of a little over 186 inches. I truly felt the deer would break 190. But no matter—he was an absolute giant. We knew that for sure.

On Oct. 29, Jason hunted the stand in the morning. The weather was terrible, with the wind blowing between 30 and 40 mph. After four hours of hanging onto his tree, Jason finally decided no deer in its right mind would be moving in such conditions, so he climbed down.

At 10:38, Jason’s trail camera got a photo of him walking past on the way back to his truck. At 11:16, the same camera took a photo of Cyclops!

The wind was wrong on Oct. 30, and naturally, the buck showed himself in daylight. On Halloween, Jason decided to stay home for the festivities with his son, Jack (who is also a real deer killer), and again, the buck was right there in shooting light. By now, my friend had begun to believe the buck was some sort of mentalist.

Jason got another daylight photo on Nov. 5, only five days prior to opening day of rifle season. The first two days of gun season Jason had no luck. On the next, he sat in a ground blind somewhere else, just to stay out of the weather. You guessed it: Cyclops was at his tree stand in mid-afternoon!

At this point, the time, effort and lack of success were really wearing on Jason and his family. On Nov. 13 his wife Erin half-jokingly told him, “You need to either kill this deer or go marry him.”

Even Jack was eager for it to end. “Please kill this deer, so I can get my dad back,” he added. The situation was stressing everyone out.

On Nov. 14 the wind was right for hunting the tree stand, and Jason decided to sit all day. At about 7:30 a.m., he heard chasing over the steep hill in front of him. Then a doe came running up the hill and went past him. Jason could hear grunting from the cedars below.

After a few tense minutes, a buck stepped up on a little bench where Jason could see him. But virtually his entire rack, from two inches or so above the bases up, was obscured by cedar branches. Jason could tell the deer was mature, but with so little antler showing, he had no idea which buck it was.

With the buck at only 70 yards, Jason cranked up his scope and looked at the buck closely. Immediately he saw the glassy eye, and he knew Cyclops was his. It was a chip shot for his accurate .270 Win. After the shot, the huge buck only went about 75 yards before he crashed.

I can’t imagine how excited Jason was after this two-year ordeal, but I know that when he called to let me know Cyclops was dead, I almost had a heart attack myself. I was driving between hunts in South Dakota and Nebraska, and I literally almost ran off the road with my heart beating more RPMs than the engine.

I could tell Jason was on top of the world, and he deserved to be. He had put in 36 days hunting Cyclops in 2012 alone, and I have no idea how many trips he made checking cameras, scouting, etc.

As amazing as anything else was the fact that the buck’s “green” net non-typical score came in at 182 3/8 inches. Remember, a month earlier we’d guessed him at 186 and change. But it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been 30 inches smaller—the love/hate relationship Jason had with this deer, thousands of trail camera photos and the amount of time he had spent hunting him over two years literally made this one for the history books of deer hunting. I simply have never met anyone who deserved to kill a deer more than Jason Tuttle deserved Cyclops.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Over his years of chasing whitetails, A.J. Downs of Conroe, Texas, has taken a number of big bucks with his bow. But none of the other mounts in his trophy room can match the size, or the meaning, of the freak whitetail that fell to his arrow shortly after daylight on opening day of the 2012 archery season.

I call the deer a “freak” for several reasons, but primarily for what’s atop his head. This magnificent maze of tines, stickers and beams looks like something out of a fairy tale. It’s one of those bizarre “starburst” racks. You know, the type that looks as if someone strapped a stick of dynamite to each main beam and lit the fuse.

This special whitetail grew 28 scorable points, including seven non-typical tines longer than 9 inches. The buck’s inside spread is 19 7/8 inches.

According to official measurements tallied by a Boone and Crockett scoring panel, the 5 1/2-year-old whitetail stacked on 124 inches of abnormal antler off a basic 8-point frame that scores in the mid-140s by itself. The official B&C score sheet stamped the buck with a gross mark of 268 5/8 and a net of 256 4/8.

Adding to the “freakiness” of the Downs buck is where he lived. A.J. killed the deer in San Jacinto County in East Texas, while hunting a 12,000-acre cattle ranching operation he and nine other hunters had begun leasing several years earlier. This low-fenced ranch, which also extends into Liberty County, is bordered on one side by more than 10 miles of the Trinity River.

Located roughly an hour’s drive from the concrete jungles of Houston, San Jacinto County offers some decent whitetail turf, but it is not well known for kicking out bragging-sized bucks. Much less those with all the world-class goodies this one has. That, claims the 40-year-old bowhunter, is part of what makes his deer one of a kind.

“This is by far the most special trophy I have, even compared to dangerous game animals I’ve shot,” A.J. says. “If you could make this deer any more special than it already is, killing it in San Jacinto County did that.

“I’ve hunted lots of places over the years, but the majority of my leases have always been in East Texas. I grew up hunting here and I have killed some good, quality bucks. But to come across a deer of this caliber in this part of the country came as a total surprise,” the bowhunter says.

Brotherly Love
While A.J. was alone in a ground blind the morning he killed the East Texas warhorse, he wasn’t by himself when he first discovered him. Younger brother Quentin was just as familiar with the bruiser buck as A.J. was.

“He just showed up out of nowhere on our game cameras about five weeks before the season opened on Sept. 29,” Quentin recalls. “He was running with a bachelor group of bucks, bouncing around between two stands we call ‘Big Lake 1’ and ‘Big Lake 2.’ He was coming to our corn feeders twice a day like clockwork.”

More than 90 percent of the images were captured at Big Lake 2, which is about a mile as the crow flies from Big Lake 1. But interestingly, beginning in early September, the brothers lost track of the big buck for nearly two weeks.

“That’s about the same time we started getting a bunch of pictures of feral hogs at Big Lake 2, but nothing of this buck,” Quentin says.
Thinking the pig activity might have spooked the deer out of the area, a week prior to the Sept. 29 opener the brothers crafted a swine-control plan. Their idea was to set up near the stand and try take out as many of the hogs as possible with rifles.

But according to Quentin, the plan was interrupted when they crossed paths with a familiar face while en route to wage war on the hogs.
“We were in our Ranger, about halfway between the between the two stands, when we jumped up a little buck about 100 yards away,” he recalls. “Then this big buck fell in behind the small one. There was no question it was him. It was our first visual of the deer. We turned around immediately and got out of there.”

The brothers returned to the area to swap out camera cards on the afternoon before the season opener. They were encouraged by what they found. The buck had revisited both feeders, more recently the Big Lake 2 site.

“He had been there that morning,” Quentin says. “That encouraged us both, because we knew he was still hanging around.”

The Big Draw
The Downs brothers share everything when it comes to deer hunting, including the 12 deer stands they’ve erected around the lease over the last seven years. While there was no doubt as to which stands they would hunt on opening morning, there was a big question as to who would go to Big Lake 2 (the one the most pictures) and who would go to Big Lake 1.

“We decided to draw for stands, but neither us wanted to draw first,” A.J. chuckles. “One of the other guys in our camp ended up flipping a coin. I lost the toss, so I had to draw.”

They didn’t draw for straws. Instead, the brothers wrote the numbers 1 and 2 on scraps of paper and stuffed them into a bag. A.J. drew Big Lake 1, but Quentin says his brother didn’t feel good about it. “In looking back, it is pretty funny,” Quentin notes. “A.J. thought I had the best spot, and I thought he had the best spot.”

Hunting in a Flood
Knowing there was a monster on the prowl, the Downs brothers were understandably pumped about their chances. What they weren’t excited about was opening day’s weather forecast. It called for flooding rains: heavy downpours that could dump as much 10 inches of water on parts of the region by day’s end. And to make matters even worse, the weather system was predicted to push through shortly after daylight.

The brothers checked the radar after a restless night, which confirmed what they already knew. It was raining as far west as Abilene—300 miles to the northwest.

“It was raining when we woke up, but not real heavy,” A.J. remembers. “The radar showed a few gaps in the green, so we had to go. The sky would have had to fall to keep us out of the woods that morning.”

The hunters arrived at their ground blinds well before daylight. Almost immediately, Quentin began getting bad vibes about his setup. No sooner had he taken a seat in the folding chair than he felt its support frame slowly giving way beneath him.

“I felt like I was sinking,” he says. “A pin popped out of the chair frame, and I went to the ground. I managed to get it put back together in the dark, but I knew right then that I probably wasn’t going to kill that deer. Not if my day started off as unlucky as that.”

A.J., meanwhile, says he had one of those unexplainable “feel good” moments the second he got into his pop-up blind.

“It was really weird, but I just knew I was going to kill that deer,” he says. “It’s not that I think I’m a better hunter or anything like that. I just knew in my gut that something good was going to happen.”

Mr. Big Comes Knocking
Shortly after daylight when the magic began to unfold at Big Lake 1, a ground level blind the brothers had constructed years ago at the south end of a 30-acre lake utilized for watering cattle. They’d fashioned the blind using a metal ring built similar to a hay ring, then brushed the outside using oak saplings, yaupon and other brush native to the area.

A.J.’s pop-up blind fit inside the frame with plenty of room to get in and out quietly. It overlooked a corn feeder at the edge of a pasture bordering a thick stand of woods and a brushy draw deer like to follow when entering or exiting the opening.

At about 7:15, the only deer A.J. was to see that morning suddenly appeared outside one of his small shooting windows. Even though the whitetail still lacked two steps giving him an unobstructed view at the close range of 15 yards, the bowhunter knew right away it was the one he’d been waiting for.

Amazingly, A.J. managed to remain as cool as a cucumber despite being within near watermelon seed-spitting distance of the largest free- ranging whitetail he’d ever seen. He was so calm, in fact, that he reached for his video camera before his bow.

“It always try to film my hunts, but I had forgotten my tripod that morning,” he says. “I videoed him for 5-6 seconds, then decided I had better grab my bow and get drawn on him.”

The great deer was is in clear view by now, but was in an awkward position, turning to scratch himself with a rear hoof. Fortunately, a few seconds later the buck turned broadside—unalarmed—and A.J. unleashed the arrow. It was a perfect pass-through, taking out both lungs.

The deer bolted and ran about 30 yards before A.J. lost sight of him in tall grass and brush. Certain he’d made a good shot, the bowhunter elected to wait 30 minutes before exiting the blind and beginning the search for a deer he felt certain was already dead. In the meantime, A.J. sent his brother a message with the news.

“I’m not going to lie,” Quentin says. “When I first saw the text, I was disappointed it wasn’t me. But I didn’t waste any time heading his direction. I knew the rain was coming, and we needed to find that deer before the big stuff hit.”

Quentin’s intuition proved correct. The bottom already had started to fall out before he arrived at Big Lake 1. That’s where he found his brother searching for blood on already waterlogged ground in a pounding rain.

“After about 20 minutes it started raining pretty hard, so I decided to get out and I found my arrow,” A.J. explains. “It had good blood on the fletchings, and I could see his tracks where he took off. But there wasn’t any blood on the ground. With it raining like it was, I just took off on the path to where I’d last seen him, and he wasn’t there. Then I sort of panicked and started second-guessing myself.”

Once Quentin arrived, the brothers split up and searched any likely path. As it turned out, the buck had made a 90-degree turn and fell dead only about 60 yards from where he’d been when A.J. stuck him. Quentin found the deer 10 yards up a dim trail on the opposite side of an old fence line.

“When I hollered, A.J. came in running,” the younger brother recalls. “He almost tackled me and immediately started saying he was sorry that he’d killed the deer and I hadn’t. It was a pretty cool moment between us: one I’ll never forget,” he says.

“The tears were rolling,” A.J. adds. “I was overwhelmed that I had killed this buck, but at the same time I also felt bad for my brother. That’s just how close we are. We were in this deal together from the very start. I just happened to draw the lucky stand that morning.”

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

(Editor’s Note: A Pope and Young panel scored the Downs buck at 245 4/8 inches net non-typical. The P&Y score is more than 15 inches higher than the standing Texas P&Y record, Thomas Friedkin’s 229 6/8-inch South Texas buck, but it is lower than the official entry score of another Texas bowkill from 2012, Robert Taylor’s Grayson County non-typical. At press time, P&Y had yet to announce an official panel score for Taylor’s buck.)

Late last September, Rhett Butler ran into an old friend on his hunting club on the Mississippi River. And the friend, Don Baddhour, had a pointed question for him: “Rhett, are you hunting a specific buck?”

With a ting of reluctance, yet trusting his friend, Rhett replied, “Yes, I am.”

“How big is he?” Don asked.

“A 180-inch deer,” Rhett replied.

“I don’t think you should shoot that deer.”

“Why not?” Rhett asked.

“There is a bigger deer here,” Don explained. “A 200-inch deer.”

Astounded by the words of the trusted friend, Rhett asked the next logical question: “Well, where is he?”

“That I’m not going to tell you,” Don replied. “You’ll have to find him.”

Because of a unique regulation in effect on this 6,000-acre hunting club, there was no way for Don to shoot the huge buck himself. Never mind that the deer was the biggest he had ever seen lay a hoofprint in the black mud of eastern Desha County.

In an effort to manage for trophy bucks, this club has strict antler regulations. Area genetics are such that a high percentage of mature bucks have eight or nine points. In an attempt to produce mature deer with 10-point frames, the rules state that a member can shoot only one deer with at least 10 typical points during any 3-year period. Don had killed one the year before, so he knew he couldn’t hunt this main-frame 10.

As well, the club is enrolled in Arkansas’ Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP). This allows for a customized management plan, including a heavy doe harvest and a “cull buck” program. Strict adherence to the long-term management plan is paying off and reforming the stereotypes of Southern hunting culture. “If it’s brown it’s down” is being replaced by, “Only if it’s mature is it down.”

Rhett is hardly a rookie at killing big deer. Going into last fall, he’d taken eight whitetails ranging from 160 to 180 inches, many of them Arkansas bow kills. As a whitetail hunter, he doesn’t have a casual bone in his body or thought in his mind.

“When I hunt, I give 110 percent all the time,” he says. “I think it is important to have goals,” the hunter notes. “And I have always had a goal to kill a 200-inch deer.” While that’s a huge deer anywhere in North America, to him the goal was realistic.

Rhett has an intimate knowledge of his hunting ground, one acquired through years of hunting the same real estate. He also has the discipline to track the nuances of the land and understand how deer use it. Keeping tabs on feeding patterns is huge.

“If there is a feed tree, persimmon, bean (honeylocust) that consistently produces, I can tell you where it is,” Rhett claims. He uses a GPS to mark what he calls ‘feed trees.’

“My favorite place to hunt a big buck is in a staging area near a feed tree, back in the timber close to where he is bedding,” Rhett says. “These big deer will use these feed trees in the evenings before heading out to bigger feeding areas.”

Rhett also keeps good records of where he gets photos of bucks and a yearly journal recording buck sightings and deer movement patterns. Rhett is extremely mobile when he hunts. He uses tree spikes and hunts out of light lock-on treestands 99 percent of the time. “I can be 25 feet up in a tree and hunting in 5 minutes,” he says. “I rarely leave a stand in a tree. I put it up when I get there and take it down when I leave.”

The Hunt
Immediately after the conversation with Don, Rhett went to work trying to locate the buck somewhere on the club’s 6,000 acres. Unfortunately, he had to leave camp that day, and he wouldn’t be back for over a week. But he proceeded to strategically scatter cameras all over the property, trying to find the deer. Phase one of fulfilling his dream of taking a 200-inch buck was under way: find him.

When Rhett returned to Desha County, he was astounded by some photos one of his cameras had captured. It was Don’s 200-incher!

On Oct. 10, the in middle of the night, the deer had been photographed in a cutover just south of a large alfalfa field. And to Rhett’s surprise, he recognized the deer! The hunter was able to go back into his trail camera archives and find photos of the buck from 2010 and ’11.

No one could have predicted the buck would leap into the 200-inch category, but he had. Two years prior, at the estimated age of 3 1/2, he would have scored in the high 140s. At 4 1/2, he’d moved into the 160-inch range.

Rhett comments, “When you look at this buck’s history, you have to calculate the stress from the 2010 floods and the drought of 2011. He made a 40-inch leap in 2012, but he probably would have been a 170 or 180 in 2011, had it not been for the stress.”

This deer did what all land managers hope theirs will do: he made a quantum leap! The buck was big bodied, heavy antlered and just outright impressive. Rhett and Don began to refer to him as “Hercules.”

Having two years of history with the deer, Rhett was able to track where he had taken pictures of Hercules. The deer seemed to be ranging over 1-1.5 square miles revolving around a 100-acre alfalfa field.

“I got out my topo maps and started trying to figure out where this deer was bedding.” Rhett recalls. On this property are areas of mature river-bottom timber, agriculture fields, thick clearcuts, buckbrush thickets and a lot of water. Historically, Rhett has had good success hunting bucks along the edges of the buckbrush.

“I like to hem up a buck along the edge of a thicket,” he says. “They don’t like to travel through the open woods, but they will move through the thick stuff in the daylight.”

Rhett relocated all of his cameras to locations inside what he thought was the buck’s main range, with the intent of getting a daytime photo. However, this proved extremely difficult.

“If I can get a picture of a buck before 7:00 in the morning in October, I know I am within 200 yards of his bedding area,” Rhett points out. “That’s what I was looking for. But this deer never gave me that.”

Rhett was getting a lot of nighttime photos in a cutover on the south side of the alfalfa field and along a buckbrush ridge a half-mile north of the alfalfa. But the early-morning photos never came. It wasn’t until Nov. 5 that he got his first daytime image of the buck along the ridge at 4:30 p.m.

From Oct. 10 until Nov. 10, Rhett bowhunted for Hercules and bounced back and forth between the cutover and the buckbrush ridge, trying not to pressure the deer too much. “I bowhunted this deer hard until rifle season opened up on Nov. 10, but never saw him,” he says. “I had hoped to get him with my bow, but when gun season opened, I picked up my rifle.”

The buck always seemed to be one step ahead of the hunter. Add in that Rhett had abandoned the hunt for a 180-inch buck he had patterned and you can understand his frustration. It is as this point in the hunt that a guy might question his decision to devote an entire season to a particular buck. However, Rhett stuck to the plan. It would be Hercules or nothing.

This frustration had him conversing with his dad about the buck just before Thanksgiving. “Dad said the buck would probably be locked down with a doe soon,” Rhett notes. And that conversation triggered a thought. Rhett remembered that inside the buck’s known range was a buckbrush thicket he hadn’t monitored.

The hunter slipped in and put a camera on a persimmon tree near a trail leading to the alfalfa field. This was a spot he had hunted in years past and really liked. He just hadn’t suspected Hercules was using it much.

“It had been a couple of days since I had hung the camera, and I needed a place to hunt with a north wind, so I decided to go check the camera,” Rhett says. “It was near a buckbrush thicket, which was this buck’s Achilles’ heel.”

When Rhett pulled the card, he was shocked to see a picture of Hercules working a mock scrape directly in front of the camera at 3:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving—the day before! The hunt was on.

The last few days the weather had been warm and balmy, and it rained on the morning of Nov. 23. “The rain cleared up mid-morning and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees,” Rhett says. “It was the kind of day you just know that something is going to die.”

This was the first time in over 20 days of the hunting the buck that Rhett had strong feeling that he was going to kill Hercules. He knew the buck was bedding in the buckbrush thicket, and he knew how he was leaving it. He felt like the buck was locked down on a doe.

Rhett climbed into his tree early that afternoon. At about 3:30 p.m. he saw six does come out the thicket and walk right past the stand. Roughly 20 minutes passed, and then a big, lone doe popped out the thicket. Hercules was right behind her! After 23 days of hunting, this was the first time Rhett had even seen the deer he was after.

“I hate to say I wasn’t nervous when I saw the buck, but to be honest, I wasn’t. The first thing that came to my mind was what a good friend said to me, ‘When you get him in your sights, remember to breathe.’ And I did.”

(Ironically, Rhett hadn’t been quite so steely on his earlier hunts for Hercules. “For the last 23 days, every deer I saw made my heart about pop out of my chest,” he admits.)

When the buck stepped out, Rhett put the crosshairs onto the buck’s left shoulder and squeezed the trigger of his Winchester .270 bolt action. At the crack of the rifle the buck dropped in his tracks and never even kicked. The hunt for Hercules was over.

“When I walked up to the deer, I was overwhelmed by his mass,” Rhett recalls. And no wonder—the eight circumference measurements totaled more than 46 inches. Hercules also had a 22 3/8-inch inside spread, over 24-inch main beams and 16 scorable points.

The first person the Rhett texted was his wife. “I was fortunate that I killed this deer the day after Thanksgiving, when so many of my friends and family were in camp, including my wife and kids,” he reflects.

Rhett worked extremely hard for this buck. A diligent, cunning hunter turned a generous tip from a good friend into the deer of a lifetime. It was a fitting ending for Hercules, one of the state’s biggest bucks of 2012.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Huge bucks are taken each year by New York hunters using a variety of gear. But for decades deer hunting in this diverse state has been synonymous with “firearms season.” For most here, nothing gets the blood flowing like the approach of “opening day,” with cars lined up along country roads, kids absent from school and “sick days” at an annual high at local businesses.

Even for those hunters who enjoy time in the woods with their bows or muzzleloaders, the most poignant memories often involve opening day of firearms season. In New York, more trophy bucks are shot on this day than any other. Last year, the state’s largest gross-scoring buck was killed on the opener! Eleven days later an equally impressive buck fell. Let’s take a look at the best bucks taken by this state’s firearms hunters in 2012.

I should note that these “best of the season” articles are always dangerous to write because inevitably great bucks surface after the article is written. But for purposes of this article I am going to feature the largest gross-scoring bucks from the 2012 firearms season registered with the Northeast Big Buck Club. Of course, it is likely that other outstanding bucks were taken but not registered with the NBBC.

The No. 1 Non-Typical Buck of 2012
Last Nov. 17, Dick Sheflin was in the woods of Livingston County for his 46th consecutive opening day of the New York firearms season. Opening day had always been a special day for Dick, but this one would be like none before.

This experienced deer hunter loves to hunt with his bow, muzzleloader and shotgun in his home state. He hunted Pennsylvania a few times in the 1980s, but most of hunting skills were honed in the woods of New York. Most areas Dick hunts include tillable land with mixed hardwoods. His favorite spots are a mix of open woods, thick cover, swampy tangles and plenty of food.

While archery has been Dick’s favorite method of hunting for many years, for him nothing matches the excitement of opening day of gun season. His shotgun had produced nearly half of his 100 deer kills over the years, and most of his 62 bucks.

Until recently, most of those bucks were pretty small. After all, Dick grew up in the ’60s, when shooting any buck was quite an accomplishment. It took him a long time to break those old habits. But recently his sons—Joe (30), Tom (28) and Jim (24)—who have killed a nice group of bucks in the range of 120-130 inches—chided him into passing on those small bucks so he could focus on a wall-hanger.

This new approach seemed to be working. Over the past several years Dick has shot fewer bucks, but bigger ones. And he now finds great enjoyment in letting the “little guys” pass. So he set his goal of shooting a buck worth mounting: by his definition, one of 140 inches or better. And Dick had access to a property that might be able to produce such a buck.

Dick had been hunting a very good property for several years prior to the 2012 season, and he and his sons had shot some decent bucks there. In late summer of 2011, another hunter spotted a giant buck with “at least 14 points” on the farm. Then opening day of the 2011 gun season on the property produced two good bucks for Dick’s sons.

Going into the 2012 season the team had a camera that had picked up some photos of really good bucks, so hopes were high for the firearms opener. They wondered if that big one was still hanging around.

The day before the opener last year was Dec. 16: Dick’s 61st birthday. But it was bittersweet, because on that date three years earlier, his mom passed away. He had spoken with her that morning, and in addition to wishing him a happy birthday, she reminded him that every day is a blessing. About 15 minutes later she had a stroke and passed away the next day.

As Dick prepared for last opening day, his mom’s words came back to him. He also recalled that she had knitted him an orange hat. So in her honor, he found the hat and decided he would wear it. Who knows? Dick said to himself. Maybe it will bring me good luck. He could not have known just how good.

Dick says he never sleeps well the night before the gun opener. To make matters worse he had a cup of coffee late in the evening. He went to bed at 10 but then woke up at 11 and could not get back to sleep. He kept himself busy all night, then cooked breakfast for sons Joe and Tom, who would be hunting with him that morning.

After breakfast, they headed out and got into their stands about an hour before first light. The temperature was in the low 20s. Dick was hunting a stand between two thick areas, though he was in open hardwoods. Around him was a swampy area with plenty of frozen water on this morning. That would make it easy to hear deer moving.

Ray Swope (left) shows off his buck with David Blanton and Dick Sheflin (right).

At 8:30, Dick saw eight does and fawns with a 5-pointer behind them. After that things quieted down again, and Dick had something to eat. By 9:30 the sun had warmed him up, and having had so little sleep the night before, the hunter decided it might be time for a little nap.

Dick looked around and saw a tree that looked like a good one to take a snooze under. So at around 10:00 he decided to do just that. But as he started down from his own tree, he happened to see movement in one of the thick areas.

Sure enough, here came some does and fawns, so Dick quietly got back into the stand. Soon afterwards he heard ice breaking, and moments later a tall-racked 6-pointer came out to chase does.

Before long, one of the does started looking behind Dick’s stand. She stamped her feet and was extremely alert, so Dick slowly looked over his shoulder. All he saw was a rack! He tried to grab his gun and it clanked against the metal hanger. Thankfully the buck did not notice the noise and Dick was able to get the gun into position. He looked ahead of the big buck, picked a clear spot and was able to follow the deer with the gun and wait till he hit the opening.

When the shot presented itself, Dick pulled the trigger. In short order the buck went down . . . kicked a few times . . . and that was that. Dick thought he had shot a “decent buck,” but he really had never taken a good look at the rack. He called Joe from his stand and said just that. Then he climbed down and walked over to the dead deer.

As the hunter got closer, it seemed to him that the buck just kept getting bigger and bigger. When Dick bent over and picked up the buck’s head, he could not believe what he was seeing. He still did not completely understand how big the buck was. “I sure hope he scores at least 140!” Dick remembers thinking. He called Joe and updated his previous story. The rack had 18 points!

Joe had a hard time believing his dad’s new version of events. But when asked if he planned to get it mounted, Dick responded, “Oh, yeah!” That was enough to convince the boys to head right over.

They were not disappointed when they got there. In fact, they were shocked! It was a great family experience as the boys enjoyed the moment with their dad. Dick thought about how fortunate he was that his boys had chided him into waiting for a “wall-hanger.” And of course, he also thought of his mom as he looked at the “lucky” orange hat she had knitted him. Taking this great whitetail was all about family.

The boys told their dad they knew his buck would indeed go “better than 140,” but the men still had no idea this would be New York’s highest-gross-score buck of 2012.

Joe took some photos with his new iPhone (the only camera they had) and immediately sent them to a few friends. Dick was amazed how quickly so many people saw that photo. By noon people all over the state were receiving the photo, and it had created quite a stir. Many people came over to see this buck and celebrate with Dick.

The next day, Bob Estes of the New York State Big Buck Club and Boone and Crockett “green” scored the deer. Now, for the first time, Dick realized just how special his buck was. He really enjoyed his time with Bob and the “hubbub” the buck created over the coming months.

After the 60-day drying period, the great buck was panel scored by Bob and Bill Estes of B&C and Robert Terol of NYSBBC. The final panel score of this buck is 195 5/8 inches gross and 188 6/8 net B&C as an 18-point non-typical. The typical frame is a 6×5 with three abnormal points on the right and four on the left.

The G-2 and G-3 tines are the strength of the rack, with the G-2s checking in at 12 5/8 and 13 2/8 and each G-3 exceeding 10. The mass is excellent, with base circumferences over 5 inches each. According to the Northeast Big Buck Club, this buck ranks No. 12 for gun non-typicals from the state all time and is the largest-gross-scoring non-typical from the state in 2012.

For more information on the NBBC, or to buy its hardcover Record Book—Northeast Trophy Whitetails VI, visit their website. For more on the New York State Big Buck Club, visit their website.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

If you enjoy a good story about a kid and his very first buck, you’re sure to love the true tale behind the bruiser whitetail Texas archer Robert Taylor brought down in Grayson County during the waning days of the state’s 2012-13 deer season.

Now, Robert is by no means a kid. But the 50-year-old construction worker from Aubrey, north of Dallas, certainly felt like one on the fateful afternoon of Dec. 29, 2012, when he brought down his first buck with bow and arrow. And understandably so. This isn’t just some run-of-the-mill whitetail with a decent rack. The trophy up for discussion here is truly one for the ages.

Just How Big is He?
While the rack hasn’t yet been panel-scored by the Pope & Young Club, Eric Stanosheck and Jennifer Barrow spent nearly five hours laboring over the freakish 44-pointer to score him for Boone & Crockett. They ended up with a net entry score of 254 4/8.

More than half of that total is attributed to the 129 6/8 inches of abnormal growth the deer stacked onto his basic 8-point frame, which nets 124 6/8. He’s a freak and freakishly big.

It’s worth nothing that the net entry score took a quantum leap over the “green” net score of 249 2/8. The reason? Eric and Jennifer took a different route when evaluating one of the main beams and a G-3 tine.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the Taylor buck also gained two scorable points after drying. But Eric says that’s easy to explain. A pair of webbed/palmated protrusions didn’t qualify as scorable points when the rack was measured green, because their length wasn’t in excess of their width. After drying, however, the webbing shrank enough that the measurers were able to squeeze two more scorable points out of the rack. One of these is 1 3/8 inches long, the other 1 1/8.

If the Taylor buck’s score holds through P&Y panel judging (next held in 2015), the deer could rank among the Top 10 bow non-typicals of all time. Of course, that’s based on the rankings as they exist today; more new giants could have come along by then.

As huge as this buck is, Robert claims the rack had as many as four more non-typical tines of legal length broken off, whether from rubbing or tangling with other bucks. Had those tines still been in place, the bowhunter thinks the deer would have scored in the 260s. But who’s complaining?

“I don’t guess that’s too bad for a first buck with bow,” Robert chuckles. “He was definitely one of a kind. I doubt there will ever be another one like that around here. But you never know. He was aged at 7 1/2, so he definitely had plenty of time to spread his genes around the neighborhood.”

Land of Giants
While word of such a bruiser being arrowed on open range is sure to grab the ears of whitetails junkies nationwide, it probably didn’t come as much shock to those who are familiar with Grayson County. Located northeast of Dallas on the Oklahoma border, Grayson has a rich history of producing bucks with high-scoring headgear. Perhaps not coincidentally, it’s the only county in Texas with a full deer season limited to vertical bows and crossbows.

Each year, hunters in these parts hold their breath when archery season gets under way, in anticipation that some lucky Grayson County bowhunter will cross paths with a B&C-caliber whitetail. Not many seasons go by that it doesn’t happen—sometimes more than once.

Prior to last fall, perhaps the most famous of all Grayson County monarchs was Jeff Duncan’s. Known to local hunters as “Big Boy,” this huge non-typical was taken at 11,300-acre Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in 2001. The 26-point rack nets 225 7/8 and ranked as the P&Y state record non-typical until 2010, when South Texas bowhunter Thomas Friedkin got a 19-pointer netting 229 6/8.

As featured in last month’s issue, the state record changed hands again in Sept. 2012, when A.J. Downs of Conroe bagged an East Texas 28-pointer that nets a whopping 256 4/8, according to B&C panel measuring completed several months ago.

The Taylor buck won’t be subject to the same P&Y scrutiny as the Downs buck until 2015. But regardless of how the antlers ultimately are scored, this is clearly one of the very biggest bow bucks ever from Texas.

Tiny Tract, Huge Buck
One ribbon Robert just might wear to his grave is for killing the biggest buck off the smallest acreage. If there’s ever been a bigger one taken by an archer off a tract of open range smaller than this, I certainly haven’t heard of it. Amazingly, this honeyhole totals a meager 4.7 acres!

The land is near Tioga, not far from Robert’s home. He bought the property about eight years ago, originally with the idea of using it to store equipment he uses in his construction business. Soon thereafter, though, he started noticing quite a few deer there. That prompted him to put up a corn feeder and sow supplemental crops. Robert also erected several tripod stands and put some trail cameras around the property to monitor the movements and growth of the deer.

Clearly, the plan worked. It doesn’t hurt that the tract borders thousands of acres of Corps of Engineers property surrounding Lake Ray Roberts.

“It’s a pretty sweet setup,” Robert notes. “The land is kind of at a pinch point on the lake. We have quite a few deer filter through there: good numbers of does and quite a few different bucks. We didn’t take the first deer off the place until last season.”

Robert has been on hunting leases in other parts of the state and in Oklahoma, but last year he decided to devote his efforts to the tiny piece of property he and his 29-year-old son, Jerry, have been grooming since 2004.

Jerry drew first blood in November, when he collected a mature 9-pointer that sported double main beams. The big buck scored in the mid-160s. But while that’s a great deer in anybody’s book, it was a dwarf compared to the non-typical that had begun showing up on their game cameras in 2010.

Mr. Evasive
Robert admittedly isn’t a master at judging deer on the hoof, but he could tell from that first scouting camera picture that he was onto something special. If the buck wasn’t 200 inches, Robert felt he was really close to it.

”He was bigger than anything I’ve ever seen, for sure,” the bowhunter says. “Best I could tell, he probably had 30 points back then, and several of his tines were longer. We got several more pictures of him that season, but just about all of them were at night.”

The Taylors spent considerable time in their deer stands in 2010, but neither was successful at connecting with the monster. Jerry was the only one to come close, sending an arrow beneath the huge deer after Thanksgiving.

”After that, we never laid eyes on him again until last season,” Robert notes. “He showed up again around Thanksgiving in 2011, but we only saw him in pictures, and always at night. He was very elusive. He didn’t show up every night, and he never made the same mistake twice. He might come in at midnight one time and at 3 a.m. the next.”

The Taylors’ 3-year game of cat and mouse with the giant continued right on into the fall of 2012. Only this time, the buck’s annual appearance came a few weeks later than normal. He first showed up on trail camera on Dec. 11. When he did, it was plain to see he’d stacked on some serious growth.

”He was missing the big drop tine he’d had (in 2011), but he gained a whole bunch of points and really blossomed out,” Robert says. “That’s when I decided I was really going to get serious about hunting him. My son was already tagged out (the Taylors each limit themselves to one buck per year), so I pretty much had the place to myself. He (Jerry) kept prodding me, telling me there was no way I was going to kill that deer. I just told him, ‘Step out of the way, son, and let the old man handle it.’”

Making it Happen
Robert handled the situation, all right. It just took him some time—and nerves of steel—to close the deal.

Killing the buck that had come to be known to the Taylors as “Big Daddy” be came Robert’s primary focus. He arranged his work schedule so he could be in a deer blind most mornings and afternoons during the waning weeks of the season.

On the typical weekday Robert was in the stand from 5 a.m. to mid-morning, then off to work until 2 p.m., then back in his stand for the afternoon. He always made a point of staying in the stand until every deer left the area.

It was during this period that Robert witnessed a noticeable change in the way Big Daddy conducted his business. Rather than being his same old nocturnal self, the deer became less wary about moving during the daylight hours. He also began visiting the goodie stations on the property more frequently than ever, probably because his body was so run down from the rut.

”Instead of every six or seven days, he started coming back every three or four days,” Robert says. “And he usually showed up late in the day.”

Amazingly, Robert ended up seeing the buck six times in 15 hunts before he felt confident enough bring his bow to full draw. On only one of those occasions was the buck extremely close. That day, the deer walked below the tall platform stand, which was next to a bois d’ arc (Osage orange) tree. But no shot was possible, because a limb blocked the archer’s view.

“I actually had him in range several times over 2 1/2 weeks, but he wasn’t in what I consider to be my range,” Robert explains. I wasn’t about to take a risky shot on this deer. I’d made up my mind a long time ago that if I ever took a shot at this guy, it was going to be the shot I wanted.”

Robert says he missed a grand opportunity to kill the buck one afternoon shortly before Christmas. Jerry went to the property to pick up some hay out of the barn, and he saw the massive deer milling around right beneath Robert’s stand. Problem was, instead of being in that stand, Robert was off singing Christmas carols with his church group.

“When my son called and told me he saw the buck, and where he was at, I was kicking myself,” Robert admits.

But persistence finally paid off when the big buck came calling again—this time, just before dark on Dec. 29. The bowhunter was watching seven does and a 10-pointer at the corn feeder beneath his stand when he spotted Big Daddy on the opposite side of the food plot.

The non-typical hopped the fence and made his way to another feeder about 80 yards away. He then nosed around in the corn for a few seconds before starting on a beeline toward the stand. Robert’s heart began to thump so wildly he could almost hear it. Then his body started to shake uncontrollably.

”Every time this buck stuck its head out, the exact same thing happened,” the bowhunter recalls. “I’d start shaking like a leaf on a tree—then I’d get cold all over. It felt almost like I had the flu.”

But then, something weird happened as the buck closed to within good bow range: That bad case of buck fever suddenly changed to a peaceful calm. To this day, Robert can’t explain it.

”All nervousness just went away,” he says. “I knew this thing was about to unfold—that I was about to get the chance I’d been waiting for. Somehow I got my breathing under control and managed to tend to business.”

Despite having nine sets of eyes within 15 yards of him, Robert somehow brought his trusty PSE to full draw without blowing his cover. He waited patiently for the shot he wanted, and when the buck turned broadside, Robert drilled him. The giant ran about 100 yards before he piled up.

”I really feel like it was by the grace of God that I was able to get drawn on him with all those other deer around,” Robert says. “I guess it was just my time. I’ve waited all my life to kill a deer like this. To be able to pull it off with a bow and arrow made it even more special.”

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NAW's Best Bucks

Tim Beck’s 37-pointer looks to be the world’s No. 2 all-time non-typical taken by a hunter, with an amazing net non-typical score of 305 7/8. He’s easily the biggest ever by shotgun, based on Boone & Crockett records. (Photo courtesy of Tim Beck)

“You shot my deer!” I heard a voice exclaim as I sat in my tree stand, watching the steam rising from the nostrils of my freshly downed buck.

I looked to my left and saw a moose of a man in camouflage heading my way. He crossed from “his” corn field behind me into “mine,” heading toward the magnificent buck I had shot only a few minutes earlier.

I’d heard stories of hunters squabbling in the field over disputed kills, though I had never been witness to such an incident. Of course, as with all other things in life, there is a first time for everything. For an instant I contemplated the probable outcome of my engaging in a physical altercation with a man half again my size.

Fortunately, my story has a happy ending. And perhaps semi-fortunately for you, gentle reader, you get to hear it. So gather ’round, children!

When Tim walked up to his buck in the tilled corn field, he was in shock. He’d just broken the state record by more than 50 inches.

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NAW's Best Bucks

My Hunting Spot
Nov. 17 was the first day of Indiana’s 2012 gun season. The location I hunt in Huntington County is somewhat centrally located in an area of farmland and small woods. I consider my spot inferior, because other hunters on adjacent properties theoretically have “first crack” at any deer moving through the area. From my stand I can sometimes see two, three, sometimes up to 12 other hunters at any given time. On the 2012 opener, I believe there were at least eight of us in the vicinity.

For almost 20 years now my plan of attack has been to take two weeks’ vacation from work to hunt deer. Indiana’s gun season generally is 16 days in November: two full weeks encompassing three weekends.

I try to hunt all day from dawn until dark, maximizing my time in the stand. My thinking is, “You can’t shoot if you ain’t there!” And if another hunter leaving at midday or entering before dusk kicks a deer my way, so much the better.

There are downsides to my plan of attack, however. It takes incredible mental stamina to look at the same soybean stubble or corn stalks 10 hours a day for up to 16 days straight and not go mad from the monotony. Happily, the occasional crow, cardinal, squirrel, barn cat, lost dog, low-flying airplane or whatever else shows up to provide welcome diversion and respite.

Hunger also must be considered. Before I began deer hunting, I could take or leave a bologna sandwich—usually leave. Alas, during deer season bologna sandwiches now are my staple. I always have a few in my pack to help ward off hunger on my day-long vigils. Unhappily, no filet mignons occasionally appear in my pack to provide relief, so by about Day 8 I’m sick and tired of bologna. Consequently, I’ve found that I can eat no cold cuts at all the rest of the year. But during deer season it’s a trade-off I’ve been willing to make over the years.

When Tim walked up to his buck in the tilled corn field, he was in shock. He’d just broken the state record by more than 50 inches. (Photo courtesy of Tim Beck)

So on this day, as I had done on ever other opener for years, I arrived at the property before dawn and parked my Chevrolet Silverado 4WD pickup. My Polaris ATV was safely loaded in the truck bed, ready to be used if needed to haul out a buck. (I always walk to the stand.)

I slung my beloved Remington 12-gauge autoloader over my shoulder, being careful not to bump my Leupold scope. The Winchester slugs nestled peacefully in the pockets of my Cabela’s outerwear, ready for action. I checked the time on my Casio wristwatch, adjusted my Duluth Trading Co. ear warmers around my Bass Pro Shops Redhead orange hunting hat and began my walk to my stand silently, giving thanks for the all-day support of my Hanes briefs. (How’s that for subtle product promotion?)

My walk was a little over a half-mile through a corn field that had been picked and tilled. Mercifully, the farmer who works the landowner’s ground leaves an untilled path for me from the road to the woods. It has to be at least a small aggravation for him to leave a truck-width, half-mile strip in the middle of the field, and I’ve always appreciated it.

Missing a Friend
There’s no way to tell my story without anonymously mentioning the man who owned the land on which I was hunting. His relationship to me can probably best be described as “pseudo-stepdad.”

He passed away in August 2012. In his time, he was a sportsman who took many trophy game animals and fish from all over the world. A local museum was built to house his many mounts. He and I were able to go fishing several times, once with a charter captain who had a television show back then.

The 2012 deer season was the first in which the landowner wouldn’t be there to watch from his window as I sat in my tree stand. In a season several years earlier, he saw me shoot a nice 11-pointer. And from his window he gave play-by-play announcements on that hunt to my mother over the phone:

“The buck is coming. It is coming. It looks like an elk! He is going to shoot. He shot. He shot! The buck is running to the woods!”

The old man eventually drove my truck back and watched me gut the incredibly large-bodied buck. “His heart looks like a beef heart!” he exclaimed. I think he was happier than I was. Over the years, whenever I field-dressed deer I harvested the tongues for him; he considered them a delicacy.

Sadly, there was no “tongue bag” in my pack for the start of the 2012 gun season. Opening day I in turn had to watch the dark windows of his empty home for the first time. In previous seasons, the lights had telegraphed what was happening at the house. Eating breakfast. Gone to the garage. In the laundry room. Watching television. Now all of the windows told me the same thing: He’s not here. A sense of melancholy seeped into my usual opening-day enthusiasm.

Here Comes the Buck
I hadn’t eaten breakfast, so by 9 a.m. I’d already consumed two sandwiches to quiet my stomach. Seasoned hunters know a whitetail can hear a rumbling belly from a quarter-mile away. I cursed myself for not bringing a half-dozen of these delectable treats. I checked my pockets for granola bars and found one. Expiration date: 2007. I held it in reserve.

I was in a ladder stand with a padded shooting rail surrounded with camo blind material. I’d hung a few deer scents in the branches

Tim-Beck_004

around me, including the scent drag I’d used on my walk in. My hunting pack, sans sandwiches, was on the floor behind me, and my slug gun was leaned against the corner of the stand.

Around 9:30, as I checked the weather radar on my smartphone, I saw a doe cross into the field I was hunting. And a good buck was walking right behind her with love in his eye. They’d been traveling from behind me.

The doe walked out in front of me, turned and angled back heading toward my stand, with the buck bringing up the rear. I waited until the doe turned her head to look back at the buck. When she did, I carefully picked up my gun, put it on the shooting rail and shouldered it. The buck seemed oblivious to anything except the doe and continued to follow her toward me with his head down, his wide rack obscuring much of his body as I viewed it through my scope.

The doe stopped and appeared nervous. I think she spotted me. The buck continued toward her, quartering toward me in the process. At about 50 yards from me, he stopped and raised his head.

Time to shoot, I decided. I put the crosshairs on the right side of his chest and fired.

I hit him. The buck stomped around but did not run. Neither did the doe. After a few seconds, the buck began walking to my right, giving me a broadside opportunity. I fired a second time, and he pivoted and he went down. It appeared that his antlers held his head off the ground. The doe traveled away to my right, exiting my field. I heard a shot. I later learned that a neighboring on an adjoining property got her.

The buck was unmoving. But rather than climb down, I prepared to watch him for a time, “just in case.” On previous hunts I’d taken photos of my dead deer from my stand if practical to do so. That was my plan for this buck, as well. But as it turned out, I never took any “from the stand” photos of him.

A Surprise Visitor
“You shot my deer!” I heard from the mooseman, who was following the same path the buck had taken.

The guy crossed into my field and turned to speak with me. For a split-second I didn’t recognize him—but then fortune smiled on me. I realized he was a fellow hunter from land adjacent to the farm I hunted.

I’d met him a few times over the years during deer season, and we had exchanged key information:

“Which way did they go?” (They’d gone to the west.)

“Did you see anyone messing with my deer stands?” (I had.)

“Do you have any extra bologna sandwiches?” (He didn’t.)

The mooseman asked for permission to go look at my buck, and I granted it. He marched to the deer, and I descended and joined him.

“Ay, Chihuahua!” I thought when I first saw the antlers up close. We counted 36 points. Boone and Crockett later counted 37, which was fine with me! Even later, a Buckmasters scorer counted 38. (If anyone knows of a Safari Club International scorer who can count to 40, please let me know.)

As it turned out, the buck and doe had passed right in front of my mooseman acquaintance on their way toward me. But he hadn’t been able to shoot the buck; Indiana has a one-buck rule, and he’d already taken a buck during bow season. He told me he didn’t try for the doe because he wanted to watch the giant-racked deer. As it turned out, by being patient he witnessed my harvest and congratulated me on a clean, quick kill.

An interesting fact we discovered about my buck was that he had an older wound from an arrow in his right hip. But he wasn’t limping and appeared to be walking normally as he trailed the doe.

We ogled the antlers, chatted a bit and took some photos. (The “official” Boone and Crockett photo of me with the buck in the field was one the mooseman snapped with my camera phone.) Then he returned to his property to continue hunting.

My usual practice upon getting a deer is to send a text message with a photo to my good friend, “Bubba Joe.” He usually texts back something like “good job” or whatever.

So I dutifully selected a photo and sent a message about a “30-something-point buck” to Bubba Joe. Almost immediately my phone rang and he exclaimed, “I’m coming to see!” I then explained where I was and requested that he unload my ATV and drive it to me to save me a walk.

I gathered my gear and field-dressed the buck, “tagging” him with my homemade deer tag. I have an Indiana Lifetime Comprehensive Hunting and Fishing License (no longer offered), which I purchased in 1996. It covers all possible Indiana hunting and fishing licenses/permits, such as deer firearm, archery, muzzleloader, antlerless deer, trout, gamebird, etc. From a cost standpoint, I broke even long ago.

A minor inconvenience is that I have no official temporary tags and have to craft my own. Over the years I’ve used scraps of paper, wrappers, keychain tags (work great!) and note cards, to name a few types of items. Lately, the Indiana DNR website has been offering a temporary tag that can be printed, so I now use that and write “Lifetime” for license type.

Eventually Bubba Joe arrived on my ATV, and I rigged the buck for transport. I hadn’t mentioned bringing my deer cart from the truck, but fortunately, I did have a plastic deer drag sled already at my stand. It’s similar to a child’s snow sled. (No doubt an enterprising company colored it olive drab so it could be sold for 10 times the price.) I’d used it successfully in the past with other deer and felt it would do the job on this one, as well.

Unfortunately, the buck’s rack proved too cumbersome for the narrow sled to handle. So we unloaded the buck from the sled and tied him to the ATV with a tow rope.

Bubba Joe pointed to my truck in the distance and noted that a crowd was gathering there. Word already had spread. I marveled at modern communications technology. I noticed other trucks of hunters milling about, waiting for my buck to get there.

I climbed aboard the ATV and started out again. I had to drag the buck slowly but eventually arrived at my truck with no further issues.

I enjoyed getting to talk to several of the hunters who had gathered to see the buck and offer me congratulations. I believe that more than once I saw the same vehicle leave and return with even more spectators. I allowed photos to be taken by anyone who asked.

(Much to my delight and amusement, some of these field photos later showed up on various hunting websites. They often were accompanied by such comments as, “That deer will never score 300. Nice buck, though!”)

After about an hour, I called an end to my one-man deer show. I thanked everyone for coming and asked them to please drive safely going home. Bubba Joe took charge of loading my buck onto my hitch rack—a rack he recently had fabricated and given to me.

He was as proud of it as I was of the buck’s rack. Perhaps even more so.

As I drove away, I glanced in my rearview mirror at the house and its dark windows. I think the old man would have been proud.

While every Boone & Crockett buck is a special trophy, the loftiest benchmark—300 net inches—is so rare as to seem unreal. Only a handful of wild non-typicals have been certified at that score.

As featured with exclusive coverage in our October issue, Indiana just joined B&C’s unofficial “300 Club,” thanks to the 305 7/8-inch giant Tim Beck shot there last gun season. That brings the number of states with a legitimate 300-incher to their credit to five. In addition to Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa have hit that mark, each with a single deer.

Conspicuously absent from this list is Kansas. The Sunflower State is legendary for its non-typicals, and rightly so. But officially, the state record is the 280 4/8-incher rifleman Joseph Waters shot back in 1987.

As huge as that buck is, the giant shown here is even bigger. Much bigger. In fact, based on the net entry score of 312 1/8, as calculated in early September by veteran measurer Dave Boland, this palmated beast finally pushes Kansas into B&C’s unofficial “300 Club.” At that score, this is potentially the No. 3 non-typical in whitetail history. What’s more, Dave came up with 51 points of an inch or more in length, making this the world’s first-ever true “50-pointer.”

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The New No. 3 Non-Typical

In the Beginning
This buck’s story actually started in 2008, and it involves a man named Jim. (His last name will, at his request, remain anonymous—as will the exact location, though we can say it’s in northeastern Kansas.)

Jim’s an avid shed hunter, and that spring he came across a 120-inch matched set from a buck he didn’t know. Despite the antlers’ mass, they looked to be from a young deer. So Jim felt the buck had a lot of potential.

However, the shed hunter didn’t think a lot more about the deer until summer 2011. That’s when a giant, palmated buck suddenly appeared on an anonymous neighbor’s scouting camera. After Jim put two and two together, he realized this buck was likely the same one whose sheds he’d found back in 2008.

When deer season rolled around, the giant was nowhere to be seen. But then, in early 2012, as Jim was out looking for sheds, he found both fresh sides from the buck. Jim was walking a hedgerow at the time, and the huge antlers were lying merely 20 yards apart.

The shed hunter was excited to find them—and who wouldn’t be? The drops had a net score of 220 0/8 inches — with no spread! What’s more, when Jim got home and compared these massive sheds to the set he’d found three years earlier, he had no doubt they’d been grown by the same buck.

As summer 2012 arrived, the giant again started showing himself on the neighbor’s trail camera. Amazingly, his velvet rack now looked even bigger!

While the summer of 2012 brought Kansas some of the hottest, driest weather on record for that part of the U.S., this special deer still somehow was growing one of the largest racks ever seen. So Jim naturally was excited about what fall would bring. But not long after the monster started to show up on trail cameras, the photos stopped. The great whitetail simply vanished.

Jim naturally hoped the buck would return, but as time went on, it became clear something had happened. Jim recalled a rumor that some disease spread by gnats had been killing off huge numbers of deer across the country, and that this was related to the drought. (It was epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD.) Curious to know if this might explain the buck’s disappearance, last Sept. 20 Jim set out on foot to investigate a nearby creek bottom the giant had been living in.

An avid trapper, Jim knows this creek bottom like the back of his hand. As soon as he entered the bottom, he started seeing the ugly evidence of EHD.

“I had no idea we had so many dead deer,” he says. “As I was walking the creek, it seemed like every 100 yards I found a dead doe. After several dead does, I came upon a small buck, then more does.”

By the time Jim had covered a little over a half-mile of the creek bottom on foot, he’d discovered nearly a dozen dead whitetails. Then came the moment that changed his life forever. Lying dead at the base of the creek’s south bank was the huge, palmated buck.

“I could hardly hold my composure as I stared at the freak of a lifetime,” Jim remembers. “It really felt like a dream. I just sat there and admired the giant. The smell of the dead deer was overwhelming, but I really didn’t care.”

A Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks law enforcement officer provided Jim with what’s referred to as a “salvage” tag. This tag allowed him to legally obtain and keep the incredible rack.

Dave Boland is among the world’s most experienced B&C measurers, and he’s taped some of the top bucks of all time. While it’s undeniable his entry score could be amended by the organization (which presumably will call the rack in for panel judging in 2016), the fact Dave came up with a net score well above 300 gives us reason to think Jim’s buck is likely to remain a member of that elite group.

If this awesome deer had been shot by a hunter instead of being struck down by EHD, it appears he’d be the highest-scoring whitetail of all time. The only non-typicals verified by B&C as larger are the 333 7/8-inch Missouri Monarch and Ohio’s 328 2/8-inch “Hole in the Horn” buck, and both of those were found dead. (Although some captive bucks have scored higher than these deer, B&C doesn’t accept whitetails or other big game taken inside high fences.)

The current No. 3 B&C buck, and the biggest ever taken by a hunter, is Tony Lovstuen’s 2003 Iowa giant, which nets 307 5/8. (Indiana’s Beck buck has been entered at 305 7/8, pending panel judging. The only other hunter-shot buck certified at over 300 net by B&C is Jerry Bryant’s 304 3/8-incher, which was taken by crossbow in Illinois in 2001.)

EHD hit whitetails hard in many areas last year, as severe drought struck much of the Great Plains and Midwest. While as of this writing there haven’t been nearly as many cases reported in 2013, every year some deer succumb to this gnat-borne virus. And as in the case of Jim’s giant, the largest bucks often are among the dead. At least this particular EHD victim was found and documented, so the world can appreciate what a special deer he was.

For Your Information
The editors thank Wayne Cox for his help in securing details on Jim’s buck. For more about the Beck buck, as well as to read recent field reports on deer activity everywhere, check out NAW’s Deer of the Day. To follow the adventures of Mike Charowhas, “The Antler Collector,” visit him on Facebook.

Ben Thomson had no idea a big non-typical even existed in his Iowa hunting area last year. Then he pulled the memory card from one of his trail cameras, and everything changed.

“It all started back in August, when I was going through photos and discovered a giant non-typical on a farm I’ve been developing for better hunting,” he recalls. “The buck had four drop tines, two of which were shaped like clubs. Best I could tell, he had 22 points and possibly more. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I nicknamed the buck ‘Hoss,’ and he became No. 1 on my hit list.”

It’s easy to see why. Ben had located a truly world-class deer. Even in Henry County, Iowa, those don’t come along every day.

“My plan was to hunt the buck during the archery season, when his travel pattern would be the most predictable,” Ben says. “If that didn’t pan out, I’d go after him again during the late muzzleloader season.”

The Habitat
“The farm is approximately 380 acres,” Ben notes. “About half of that was planted in soybeans. Two small woodlots consume around 40 acres, and about 120 acres is CRP. The only other food sources were corn fields on the properties to the north and south.”

Ben felt he needed to tweak the habitat, but he wasn’t quite sure how. Then a buddy stepped in to lend a helping hand.

“The property had so much CRP, I didn’t know where or how to start making habitat improvements,” the hunter says. “My friend Jeremy Gabeline brought out some heavy equipment and helped me clear a couple areas for food plots. We burned off the CRP near the fence line and planted alfalfa. Little did I know then, but the alfalfa would play a key role in attracting and holding the buck on the property.”

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NAW's Best Bucks

Changing Plans
“The early muzzleloader tags (a resident-only season) went on sale about the same time I got those first pictures,” Ben says. “I normally hunt late season, but my friends Bo Russell and Ryan Egan had been pressuring me to buy an early-season tag. Deep down I knew my best chances of shooting ‘Hoss’ would be early, while his travel pattern was somewhat predictable. Even so, I was reluctant to give up the late season.

“I work third shift, and Ryan called one morning to tell me there were only 80 tags left. The very thought of someone else shooting the buck haunted me to the point where I couldn’t sleep. I got up and moseyed into the computer room and ordered a tag online.”

What a choice that proved to be.

Observation Stands
“From the trail cam photos and glassing, it was obvious the big buck was spending the majority of his time in a small willow patch in the middle of the CRP field,” Ben says. “With the exception of one lone tree near the alfalfa food plot, there wasn’t any means of getting closer to his core area. However, from there I could watch the entire CRP field, including the willow patch.”

OCT. 1: 1st Sighting
“Hunting opening day of archery season (Oct. 1) has been a tradition, and this year wasn’t any different,” the hunter explains. “The wind was west-northwest that afternoon, so I decided to hunt the fence line stand.”

Ben got to his spot a little later than usual, and it put him in a tight spot.

“I was caught off-guard by a doe that suddenly appeared while I was climbing into the stand,” he says. “I stopped and scanned the CRP field and spotted a big 9-pointer walking down the waterway. It was the same buck that had been traveling with Hoss all summer.

“The buck continued slowly toward the corn field on the neighboring ground, but suddenly came to a stop and looked back. That’s when I saw the antler tips of another deer emerging from a shallow swale. My heart skipped a few beats when I realized it was the drop-tine buck. It was the very first time I had laid eyes on him, and words can’t even begin to express the excitement I felt at that moment.

“Another 20 minutes passed before both deer wandered from sight,” Ben remembers. “My biggest dilemma then was getting back to the truck without being seen. Instead of taking the short route, I decided to walk all the way around the property. It took 45 minutes longer but proved to be the best alternative.”

Catching a Poacher
“I wasn’t able to get back out until the afternoon of Oct. 4,” Ben says. “When arriving, I surveyed the area and spotted a Jeep parked along the fence line on the neighboring ground. I thought to myself, Ah, a little competition. Not a big deal, considering I’d seen someone rattling from a stand along the fence line before.

“I didn’t think much more about it until a gun shot broke the silence. I thought, What the heck was that?

“Through the binoculars I saw a yearling doe running away from the stand on the neighbor’s,” Ben continues. “A short time later, I watched a guy climb down. He was carrying a gun and acting suspicious. Shortly after that he walked up to a doe lying on the ground. Almost immediately he whipped out a knife and began field dressing the deer. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I got my cellphone out and called the local DNR officer and told him what had just happened. The officer asked for the exact location and said he would be there in 10 minutes.”

While waiting for the officer to arrive, Ben watched the guy drag the doe into the brush, then cut a few tree branches to cover her.

“I saw the DNR coming down the road, and from my cellphone directed him to the exact spot where the guy was,” Ben recalls. “Afterwards, the officer called me back to say thanks. The guy claimed he was squirrel hunting and couldn’t resist the temptation when the doe and yearling came walking by.

“(To make a) long story short, the guy got two tickets and had his gun confiscated,” Ben says. “I’ve never heard of anyone hunting squirrels from a treestand but have often wondered what he would have done, given the opportunity to shoot a big buck.”

OCT. 5: 2nd Sighting
“The following afternoon the temperatures had dropped: just the type of weather one could only hope for in early season,” the hunter says. “There was probably 45 minutes of shooting light remaining when the heavy 9-pointer appeared along the waterway. Shortly after came a 160-class 11-pointer I also had on trail camera.

“I was anticipating the drop-tine buck would show at any moment. Sure enough, not long after that Hoss appeared. Even at 200 yards, I was ecstatic to see him again. Like the first evening, he continued down the dry creek bed toward the corn field and eventually disappeared. I had seen eight bucks that evening, and my confidence was building.”

OCT. 7: 3rd Sighting
“I didn’t hunt the following day but decided to go out the next morning,” Ben continues. “I hadn’t hunted that stand in the morning and wanted to confirm the buck was using the same route leaving the corn field and going to his bedding area.

“Several deer passed through the first hour. Around 8:15, I spotted more movement. It was the drop-tine buck, following the creek bed toward the CRP field. Eventually he bedded down. Even from 200 yards I could see his antlers through the tall grass.

“Over the next 45 minutes, I watched him stand up and bed back down twice,” Ben says. “I thought about trying a spot-and-stalk through the CRP, but knew my chances with a bow were slim at best. Rather than risk blowing him out of the area altogether, I climbed down and headed home. If his travel pattern remained the same, I was confident I’d get a crack at him in early muzzleloader, which was only a week away.”

Staying Away
“It was tough to do, but I stayed clear of the area the entire week,” Ben says. “My mother (Chris) and I went out to the range one evening to shoot the Encore, just to make sure it was still spot-on at 150 yards.

“The night before opening day, I asked another supervisor to come in early so I could hunt the next morning,” the hunter explains. “I went home and gathered up my gear and took a scent-free shower. Rain was in the forecast, but nevertheless I headed to the stand anyway.

“It started raining shortly after sunrise, but I stayed in the stand until about 9:30. Although I had high expectations, only one doe came through the entire morning.

“I went to my brother-in-law’s house, where some friends were gathering to watch the Iowa Hawkeye game. There was also a benefit softball game for my father-in-law that day. I hadn’t slept since the afternoon before but agreed to watch our four kids so my wife, Juli, could play in the game.”

So it wasn’t exactly shaping up to be a memorable opening day of muzzleloader season. In fact, nothing that had happened to this point would suggest Ben’s decision to grab one of those limited tags was a good one. Watching for a monster non-typical had been taken off the menu by a need to watch the kids. But things were about to change.

“The first few hours were hectic without sleep, but my father-in-law came by that afternoon and took our three oldest kids. Shortly after I called my aunt, Mary, and she offered to take our 4-month-old so I could slip out for the evening.

“All week the wind came from the northwest,” Ben says. “But it switched direction to southeast when the rain moved in. The drop-tine buck had been traveling into the wind on every occasion, so I didn’t have much confidence hunting the fence line stand, but headed there anyway.”

During his first hour while on stand, Ben saw a doe but nothing else. The hunter decided to shift gears.

“Considering the wind direction, I figured Hoss would probably head toward the south side to feed in the soybeans,” he says. “There are a couple of creeks that parallel the soybean fields on the south end that I could sneak along. I couldn’t take sitting any longer and decided to climb down and try a little spot-and-stalking,” Ben explains.

The Right Move
“Staying low in the creek bed, every so often I’d peek over the bank and glass the fields. There wasn’t anything in the first field, so I continued toward the next. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything in that field, either. Needless to say, it was more than a little disappointing,” the hunter notes.

“There was still plenty of shooting light remaining, so I decided to check one last field on the way back to the truck. Slipping along the creek to a spot where the soybean field bordered the timber, I peeked over the bank. I didn’t see anything, so I continued toward the edge.

“I couldn’t have taken more than two steps into the field when I spotted the big 9-pointer,” Ben says. “As I scanned the field, I saw the drop-tine buck 50 yards beyond his buddy. By then, both deer were looking directly at me.”

The hunter’s next move was simply an instinctive one.

“I brought the gun up and cocked the hammer back,” he says. “I looked through the scope and desperately tried to settle the crosshairs but couldn’t. I was so excited—the crosshairs were wandering around the entire body and never came close to the vitals.”

But then, Ben managed to recall the last text message he’d received from Bo that day: “If you get a shot, be sure to take a deep breath and gather your composure first.”

“With that in mind, I took a deep breath and leaned into the gun and settled the crosshairs,” Ben says. “The instant the gun went off, I ran through a cloud of smoke, expecting to see the buck running off. Instead, I was surprised to see him lying in the field.

“I don’t think I’ve ever run that fast in my life,” the hunter says. “I couldn’t wait to put my hands on the rack. I remember lifting the head and saying to myself, Oh, my God! I finally got him! Almost immediately I called Juli to share the news. Afterwards, I sent a text to Bo and Ryan that said: ‘BBD!’

“I’ve been known to be a practical joker, so it stands to reason why they didn’t believe me at first. Long story short, they both met me at the house, and we went out to recover the deer.”

A Colossal Rack
“For years my goal was to shoot a buck that would qualify for entry in the Boone & Crockett record books,” Ben says. “No doubt this deer far exceeds my expectations and is truly the buck of a lifetime.”

Indeed. The rack has 24 scorable points, 14 of those non-typical. Adding the 77 4/8 inches of abnormals to the gross typical 5×5 of 168 6/8 yields a gross non-typical score of 246 2/8; after deducting for asymmetry on the typical frame, the final score is 239 5/8. That makes the Thomson buck one of the best muzzleloader bucks ever from Iowa.

In Conclusion
“I’d like to say thanks to Bo Russell and Ryan Egan for their persistence to buy the early muzzleloader tag,” Ben says in reflection on the hunt for Hoss. “In addition, I’d like to thank Jeremy Gabeline. Without his help, I’m quite sure the property wouldn’t have held a deer of this caliber.”

Editor’s note: If Bo Russell’s name sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because his own huge Iowa buck from last fall was in our September issue.

I really didn’t think I’d ever write this piece. Not that I didn’t think I’d be around to do it. For a long time I really just didn’t think there would be any need for it.

When Milo Hanson’s 213 5/8-inch Boone & Crockett world record typical buck was shot on the morning of Nov. 23, 1993, it was the biggest whitetail news to come along in a long time. The monster buck, taken by rifle near Hanson’s residence outside Biggar, Saskatchewan, was clearly bigger than James Jordan’s 206 1/8-incher from Wisconsin, which had long held the world record. As the Jordan buck had been shot way back in 1914—and rarely seriously challenged—for a new buck to shatter his record by 7 4/8 inches was indeed the stuff of headlines.

And headlines we gladly gave him here at North American Whitetail. In fact, our Feb. 1994 issue broke this incredible news to the public, sending shock waves throughout the deer world. The upper limit of net antler typical antler growth on a whitetail had just been redefined, and in stunning fashion.

So why did I never give any thought to a 20-year retrospective on this landmark event? Because I didn’t think Hanson’s record would last this long. I assumed that by now some other typical would have usurped him. Maybe even more than one.

In fact, I told Hanson that myself back in 1995. We were at a restaurant in Dallas, celebrating his deer having just been named the new record by a panel of B&C measurers. In fact, I remember telling Hanson I didn’t think the record would last 10 years. There were just so many huge sheds being found, especially in the Midwest, that for a deer netting higher than 213 5/8 to come along in the near future seemed to me quite likely.

Time now has proved it wasn’t such a gimme after all. Sure, as I write these words a bigger buck could be on his way to a taxidermist someplace—but even if that’s the case, the Hanson buck has held the No. 1 spot much longer than I predicted.

As I look back on the events surrounding this story two decades ago, I realize it was a unique time in whitetail history. And certainly one of several noteworthy times in our magazine’s coverage of world-class whitetails.

Chasing the Big Buck
Hanson was, and is, a farmer living outside Biggar. So to this day, few people would have heard of him had it not been for what happened on Nov. 23, 1993. That day, he and some friends were doing deer drives. They kept seeing a certain huge buck that had been spotted in the area before the season. And several of the men had shots at him. But as it turned out, Hanson’s shot was the one that connected.

That might not sound like a story befitting the greatest typical buck of all time, but that’s how it happened. Hanson easily could have trumped up some wild tale about patterning the buck and then getting him only because he wisely used (fill in the blank) product, but he didn’t. He told the story as it happened and hasn’t wavered a bit in that regard.

You might assume with a deer of this magnitude, the hunter would have realized right off that he had a record breaker. But Hanson wasn’t up to speed on antler scoring. Not only did he not know he’d shot a potential record, he didn’t even take serious precautions to protect his trophy. For eight days the deer hung in a storage building on the farm—and there wasn’t even a lock on the door.

By the way, tooth wear showed that amazing buck to most likely have been only 4 1/2 year old. His teeth weren’t even that worn for a deer of such age. And he wasn’t of huge body, as many older bucks in the prairie provinces are. Everything pointed to him having lived just long enough to grow a gigantic typical frame but not long enough to have added score-robbing abnormal points to it. The perfect buck had come along at the perfect time, and he’d met up with a hunter who could get the job done when the opportunity presented itself.

Chasing the Story
Eventually, word of the deer reached local whitetail enthusiast Jim Wiebe. On the morning of Dec. 1, Wiebe called our office at NAW to report he felt his neighbor had taken a 6×6 that was very likely to be a new B&C world record. I remember getting that call and then passing along the news to NAW publisher Steve Vaughn. To say we took the rumor seriously would be an understatement; within two hours we were getting on a jet in Atlanta, bound for Saskatoon.

The next morning, Jim, Steve and I walked into Hanson’s house and met with him, his wife, Olive, and a few of his hunting buddies. It was a pleasure to visit with them and to see the deer. I remember walking into a downstairs room and seeing the head and cape of the beast on the floor. It took no ciphering to realize this deer was big enough to beat the Jordan buck. Amazingly, perhaps, we were there more than 12 hours, and never did I even reach for a measuring tape. I didn’t need one to know we were staring at history in the making.

One of the real curiosities of the rack, aside from its stupendous size and symmetry, was a wad of electrical tape between the left brow and G-2 tines. We learned that as the buck was running away on one of the pushes, a .308 Win. Bullet from Milo’s Winchester Model 88 had hit the back of the beam, cracking it significantly. It hadn’t broken off, but it was clearly damaged. The tape was there to make sure it didn’t break off.

By my Southern standards, it was cold that day we spent at the Hanson farm. The fact I’d worn western boots to the office that day—and had only a jacket and no gloves—made it less hospitable still. But finally I asked Hanson if I could snap a few photos of him with the deer’s caped head. Before we left the Hanson farm that night, we had a deal for North American Whitetail to publish the first print feature and photos on this amazing trophy. We immediately returned to Atlanta, and I began writing the story. It appeared in our Feb. 1994 special collector’s issue, with one of my photos of Milo with the deer on the cover. And sure enough, that issue went on to become one our all-time bestsellers. Suddenly, people all over the whitetail world knew who Milo Hanson was.

In Retrospect
Although it didn’t seem so when we were chasing the Hanson buck story, as I look back on it now, it’s easy to see how much simpler things were back then. For one thing, I found out about that historic deer by telephone (and a landline, at that), not by text or social media. Word simply traveled more slowly than it does now. But the interest in record-breaking deer was as great then as it is today. Our magazine’s reputation for providing in-depth coverage of the world’s biggest whitetails, along with our willingness to hop onto a plane and travel to another country on a moment’s notice, put us in position to get this story for our readers. And we’re thrilled it worked out.

It’s interesting that a friendship forged that cold day in 1993 is still strong. I’m still welcome at Hanson’s house, and he at mine. And he’s worn the B&C crown with grace. He was a fine ambassador for hunting when he first became known, and he remains one today. He knew from the start that someone eventually would break his record—it was always just a matter of when. But it hasn’t happened yet. This deer’s top ranking could last another 20 years, or even longer. All I’m sure of is that I’m done trying to predict when a bigger one might come along.

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Monster Bucks: 20 Biggest Typicals of All Time

Hunter: Jason Erb
State/County: Ohio/Columbiana County
Score: 193 3/8 gross
Gear: Bear Attack compound bow

With daylight quickly fading on a mid-November evening, Jason Erb closed the deal on his “buck of a lifetime.” From his treestand on a friend’s serene plot of land in northeast Ohio, Erb nabbed this Buckeye monster buck from 18 yards.

It was around 5:30 p.m. on a quiet evening when “not even a leaf was moving in the woods,” Erb recalled.

Erb recounted the story in his own words:

A good friend of mine gave me permission to hunt his property in central Columbiana County in northeast Ohio. The property is absolutely picturesque, with rolling hills covered in a mixture of woods, crops and grassy fields. I was excited to hunt there because of the large deer population and known shooters in the area.

Prior to opening day, I looked over the property and decided to hunt a nice, hidden field not far-off the beaten path. This field was about 40 yards wide by 80 yards long with several apple trees around the perimeter. I secured a Sniper 16-foot Avenger Ladder Stand and a permanent safety strap/carabiner for my Hunter Safety System harness to a 10-inch diameter wild cherry tree in the northwest corner of this hidden field. I chose this corner because I thought the majority of the deer would be coming from the bottom of the draw in the northwest/southwest corners.

Excited for the upcoming season, I got my gear ready and my wife washed all of my hunting clothes. I have tried attractant scents over the years and have not been successful. Therefore, I do not use them. I do everything I can to eliminate human odor and let nature take its course. I do use the Dead Down Wind odor eliminator, however.

I started my archery season on Sep. 29, the second day of the season. I was in my stand almost daily. Most of my relaxing evenings were filled with noisy chipmunks, squirrels, blue jays and pileated woodpeckers. I was visited almost every evening by wandering does, fawns or immature bucks looking for a girlfriend.

Sunday, Nov. 3, was my 17th day in the woods. This was the first day of the time change. Therefore, daylight was reduced by an hour and legal daylight ended at 5:47 p.m. The evening was very still and not even a leaf was moving in the woods. About 5:35 p.m., a doe with two fawns came out in the small field I was hunting. They grazed around the field awhile until the doe started to get leery. She then tucked her tail and walked away. I have been in the woods long enough to know that it means a buck is not far behind.

I always sit with my Bear Attack compound bow across my lap with my left hand in the wrist sling and my right hand on my T- handle TRU-Ball release. Within a minute I saw another deer walking toward a scrape that was about 35 yards from me. At that time I could not tell it was even a buck. The deer walked over to the scrape that was located in the corner of the field, stretched out his neck and started licking the branch.

At that point I could see it was a buck, but I did not yet know if it was a shooter. The buck started walking toward me and the yearlings. As it came closer I turned my bow vertical and drew while still seated. The buck got within 18 yards and I knew he was a shooter, but again, I did not know he was as large as he was. I was focused on the shot and not looking at the size of his rack. I knew I was within minutes of legal time, and trust me, it was getting pretty dark.

As I focused on the vitals, I squeezed my trigger on my release and my Gold Tip arrow fitted with a 2-Blade Rage broadhead hit its mark.

He ran in the same direction he came from. After a few minutes I got down and went to where I shot. I found two-thirds of my arrow with blood on it. I walked a few feet and found blood. I walked back to my truck and sat for 45 minutes. If you are a hunter, you know how those 45 minutes can feel like hours!

After 45 minutes, I walked down to the impact site and started following the blood trail. He backtracked on the same trail that he came in on. I followed the blood about 80 yards and found a white belly staring right at me. As I walked up to the deer, I knew he was a shooter but I was still in shock. I called a friend to tell him I shot a nice deer, and he asked me how big the deer was. I was quick to reply that it was probably a 140- to 150-inch deer. I had a lot of work to do.

As I knelt over him and closely examined his rack, I almost cried. I knew this deer was a lot larger than I’d originally thought. After I gutted the deer, a friend of mine helped me drag the massive buck from where he expired. Luckily, I only had to drag him about 30 yards before we manhandled him into the back of a Kawasaki Mule. I assumed this deer was close to 250 pounds.

After a full evening of show and tell, I took him home and hung him in the garage. I wanted to sleep beside him with a gun to ensure no one stole him! The next morning I took him to the taxidermist, who was even impressed. Jeff measured the rack at 193 3/8 (gross) and aged him at 4 ½ years old. He has 16 scorable points and his inside spread was 25 5/8 inches.

As you can see by the photos and the smile on my face, I had a great archery season! To be honest, I think my wife was glad to see my season come to an end. I believe the novelty of my deer hunting was wearing-off. God blessed me with a once in a lifetime buck!

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Jason Erb 193-Inch Ohio Trophy Buck

Despite one of the worst droughts in history, in July 2012 my expectations for deer season here in central Ohio were as high as ever. Trail cameras were set, mineral sites were established, and other attractants were strategically placed throughout the farm. But after monitoring trail cameras for two months, I realized our inventory of big bucks was depressingly low. Although bow season was right around the corner, a “hit list” had yet to be established.

What made this disconcerting was the fact we’d taken no bucks off the farm the previous year. My core hunting group (which includes my father, Philip “Jim” Cogar, and brother-in-law Rob Donahue) had let the buck population rebuild in 2011-12. All three of us, as well as Invite X-tream and Doc’s pro staffer Chase Adams (who also hunted the farm) chose to pursue our bucks elsewhere. Surely, we felt, our collective commitment that season would pay off in the future.

REAPING BENEFITS
Despite the lack of mature bucks on our cameras in late summer, by last Oct. 22 our “hit list” had grown to four. And by Nov. 7, three of those four deer were at the taxidermy shop. My father, Rob and Chase all had managed to get it done, stretching the tape to nearly 450 inches of antler among them. Interestingly, each of those bucks was 20-30 inches larger than he’d been the year before!

Clearly, the previous season’s sacrifice by everyone had paid tremendous dividends after all Regardless of how the rest of the 2012-13 season went, I already considered it to be a huge success. As I was to learn, it was far from over.

SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST
Let’s rewind back to Oct. 27. I was eagerly anticipating some bowhunting after spending the earlier part of the month scurrying around with out-of-town weddings, birthday parties and road trips back home to Canfield, Ohio. After the morning hunt, I was anxious to go through photos on the memory card I’d pulled before leaving the woods. That’s when I saw him for the first time.

“Un-be-lievable!” was all I could manage to say as the image popped up on the computer.

“What? What?” Dad asked anxiously. He couldn’t see the screen from where he sat.

“Dad, not only do we have a ‘Booner’ on our hands, we have ourselves a 200-incher!”

Needless to say our plan to take an afternoon nap before heading back out for the evening hunt was quickly canceled. Instead, the next few hours were spent staring at two photos of this new giant and talking strategy.

Rob, our friend Chris Sharp (board member and Ohio hunt manager for the non-profit organization Physically Challenged Bowhunters of America) and I always assign nicknames to the bucks we pursue. However, in this case my dad was the one who came up with the name. Without hesitation, he uttered the word “Conan.”

I asked him to repeat himself, and he said, “That’s what we’re going to call him: Conan!” Of course, this was a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in the 1980s movie, Conan the Barbarian. And it seemed a perfect name for this giant.

With the rut and our annual week- long hunting camp quickly approaching, a plan was devised to bag this truly once-in-a-lifetime deer. But the excitement was short-lived; our week of vacation passed with no sightings and no further trail camera pictures of Conan. Then, as quickly as the rut had come and gone, so too had nearly all of November.

By now, doubt and frustration were setting in. More than a month had passed since our last picture of the giant. With two more months of archery season and in my opinion some of the best hunting still left to go, I regrouped and started thinking late-season tactics.

Although a second round of out-of-town travel kept this weekend warrior sidelined for a while, I was constantly thinking about my next move. Years of experience with coming across big bucks on trail cameras, only to have them disappear forever, were all too familiar to me. This time I was determined not to let it happen.

Two weeks before Christmas, I had one day to sneak out to the woods. The plan was not to hunt the same old stand sites. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t going to hunt at all. My objective was to reevaluate the property and scout it all over again, looking for late-season deer activity. Having three cameras, I decided to set them up in the top three spots I could find, based on my most recent information.

A week later I checked the cameras, and wouldn’t you know it? Conan had made a cameo on Dec. 18, after a nearly two-month hiatus.

ROUND 2
Proof that he was still alive was the motivation I needed to press on through the late season and hunt harder than ever before. I was determined to will this deer into bow range before season’s end. The law of attraction (the theory that one can control achieving goals through positive thinking) was in full effect.

Aside from telling a select few other hunters, as well as my taxidermist (Zoran Saveski of Highpoint Taxidermy in Thornville), I kept Conan a secret. This was difficult, as it’s my nature to share my trail camera pictures with my hunting buddies. But I knew that practice had historically been my kiss of death. In almost every instance, any record-book buck I’d shared pictures of had ended up being taken by someone else. Always the outfitter and never the hunter, as they say!

A phone call in January from good friend Mike Aleshire, who farms and hunts the land north of me, yielded season-changing information. He told me about this tremendous buck his trail cameras had managed to get a few pictures of. Always up for some big-buck photos, I stopped by his place one day after work. To my dismay, I discovered that his new visitor was in fact Conan.

Normally, I’d have been extremely excited, exchanging high fives with my friend. Knowing me well enough to recognize that I was acting a bit strange, he looked at me, grinned and said “OK, out with it.”

I smirked back and said, “Well, I guess my secret is out.”

By now, friends Frank and Joe Aleshire also were pursuing the buck — 1.5 miles from where he was frequenting my trail cameras. To say I was perplexed would be an understatement. What was a deer of that caliber doing traveling so far every few days in mid-January?

Everything I’d ever read talks about how big bucks during that time of year, long worn out by the rut and battling harsh winter conditions, go into energy-conservation mode. Typical behavior at that time should consist of bedding all day, only to get up once or twice for a stretch or to grab a quick bite. Conan clearly wasn’t holding to that pattern.

And continuing his non-traditional ways, the deer started to make daytime appearances in front of the camera — but only on Mike’s farm. With below-average temperatures and the above-average snowfall we were experiencing, my buddies were able to pattern him down to one of two stand sites.

Then, on the evening of Jan. 18, I received a phone call that Frank had actually managed to shoot Conan and that my friends were still tracking him. They tracked him that night and the next day, but to no avail.

Dreadful thoughts now consumed me. Had this traumatic experience left Conan educated enough to become fully nocturnal and even more reclusive? Worse yet, had he buried himself somewhere in thick brush and died?

Thankfully, my fears soon were set to rest. Five days later, on Jan. 23, guess who decided to show back up on my trail camera? It was Conan, sporting a noticeable back wound where Frank’s arrow had entered.

ROUND 3
Sunday, Feb. 3, was the last day of Ohio’s archery season. It also was Super Bowl Sunday. Having played college football at the University of Findlay, I’m a huge fan of the game. However, while the rest of America was anticipating the Ravens-49ers battle, I was gearing up for my own final showdown, perched on a cold metal platform high in a tree.

This particular stand was not my typical setup. Usually I’m 30 feet high in a hang-on stand. As this site wasn’t conducive to such heights, I was preparing to hunt from a trusty 15-foot ladder stand.

NOW OR NEVER
Shortly after getting hugs and kisses from my wife Summer, daughter Kensie and son Cru, I was en route to the final hunt of the season. For never having actually laid eyes on this deer, I felt incredibly confident that this hunt would be unforgettable. The feeling was bolstered when I got an uncharacteristic “good luck” call from my mother-in-law just minutes before I took my stand. Being caught slightly off-guard by her call, I laughed and jokingly thought, OK, that was a sign. Now it’s on!

Once I’d settled into my stand, it wasn’t long before deer were up and moving. A chilly 20 degrees and snow flurries made for great movement. However, the swirling northwest winds were proving troublesome down in that creek bottom. Every deer I encountered was extremely jumpy and kept running off, only to very hesitantly come back in. I was glad I’d washed my clothes one last time, in addition to taking my standard scent-free shower.

And then, as I analyzed my strategy, scent-free shower and all, I looked to the top of the hill. And there he stood! It was such a surreal moment, witnessing for the first time the very deer that had consumed my thoughts daily since October. Despite losing an estimated 50 pounds from the time I’d first seen him on camera, Conan was by far the most amazing creature I’d ever laid eyes on!

Unlike all of the other deer, he appeared unaffected by the wind; he came trotting down the hill on a string right toward me. But as I slowly stood to get ready for a shot, out of nowhere a yearling buck appeared — and he situated himself perfectly between Conan and me.

Conan hit the brakes and proceeded to watch the young buck, which was playing that head-bobbing game with me, trying to get me to move. Moments later he spooked and ran off, taking Conan with him.

Initially my heart sank as I watched the most majestic animal I’d ever seen running away. However, at the time I couldn’t help feeling anything other than eternally grateful—grateful just to have had the opportunity to see such an animal. His running off wasn’t about to dampen my excitement. With a fair of amount time left before dark, I still felt he’d show himself again.

The young buck hadn’t liked something about my setup. It then occurred to me that I’d never stood while hunting that stand. I immediately sat back down and swung my legs to the side, letting them dangle to the right of the seat. This would allow me to come to full draw much more easily from a seated position.

About an hour later, I caught movement atop the hill and saw three bucks moving very slowly in my direction. The last in succession was Conan!

What usually takes seconds for the deer to work their way down to me took them minutes, due to the windy conditions and their jumpy disposition. Bow in hand, release on and with feet dangling off to the side, I was ready. There were now just 30 minutes remaining in Ohio’s bow season.

The final showdown was on, and in typical big-buck fashion, Conan took a different route than the other bucks. Twice he worked his way within 25 yards, yet neither time was there even the slightest chance for a high-percentage shot. Conan then spooked and ran off one more time. This time I came to full draw and had a 45-yard shot but elected not to take it.

The giant continued to work his way out to 80 yards — then, all of a sudden, he stopped and looked back down the hill. There stood the very same yearling buck that had caused him to run off earlier that evening. Conan’s body language suggested he wasn’t happy about the subordinate buck not following his lead. The huge deer worked his way back downhill toward me, ears pinned back, walking with a purpose.

Eventually Conan took the place of the young buck next to a tree I’d ranged 100 times before at 25 yards. Then something to the east diverted his attention, distracting him long enough for me to come to full draw again. Several seconds later he went on to take two more steps, giving me a slightly quartering-to angle. I gently squeezed off the release, sending my arrow on its way.

I couldn’t see where the arrow entered, but the sound at impact alone was enough for me to know it was in the deer’s vitals. Conan ran to the top of the hill, tail tucked, and then stopped for about 30 seconds. I must have set a world record for the most times repeating the words “Go down” within a 30-second time frame. After watching him fall, I immediately hung up my bow, leaned back against the tree, and started to give thanks.

A phone call to my father was now in order. As soon as I looked at my phone I took note of what time it was and realized that only 20 minutes remained before the Ohio archery season would officially conclude!

Barely able to speak, I gave Dad the great news. He excitingly yelled, “You got him!?” That was followed immediately by, “Jimmy got him!” as he shouted to everyone who had gathered at my parents’ home for a Super Bowl party. I could hear everyone in the background erupt in celebration, and that’s when I lost it. Having a short cry never felt so good!

Even though I’d seen Conan fall a mere 75 yards away, I still quietly backed out of the woods and called for reinforcements. As soon as my friends Mike Little and Shane Bivens showed up, I jumped into Shane’s truck. Shaking from both the cold and adrenaline, I excitedly retold the story of my hunt of a lifetime.

Within an hour, I had eight friends and both landowners present for the recovery effort. With no tracking job needed, we walked right up to the deer. Instead of the normal celebrating, we just stood there in silence, marveling at the majestic monarch that lay before us.

Once I had my temporary tag on Conan, concern that one or both antlers might pop off consumed my mind. (Some bucks in Ohio start shedding in January, if not earlier.) I knew we shouldn’t pull him out by his rack, so Shane came up with the idea of taking apart my 15-foot ladder stand and using one of the 5-foot sections as a “stretcher.” It worked!

Not thinking clearly that evening, I forgot to grab my trail camera or the arrow, which was still sticking into the ground. A few days later I returned to pick up everything. Checking my memory card, I saw my Cuddeback had managed to capture two images of Conan that day. One was taken two minutes before I shot him, the other a fraction of a second after the arrow passed through him. Barely visible in that photo was the arrow sticking in the ground as a blurry Conan ran off.

SCORING CONAN
Sixty-plus days later, the rack was officially measured by Steve Boham and Dave Orndorf, who as a team represented Boone & Crockett, Pope & Young and Buckeye Big Buck Club. Buckmasters Trophy Records master scorer Ed Waite Jr. measured the rack for that organization.

There were two very different interpretations of the antlers. As a result, while Conan now ranks as P&Y’s No. 9 Ohio non-typical, with a net score of 213 4/8, he ties for the typical world record for compound bow kills in BTR.

The folks at P&Y also informed me that this was their first-ever Ohio entry to have been shot in February. In fact, after some additional research and record book clarifications, it appears my buck is the largest wild whitetail ever taken anywhere in February, by any means!

Wanting to know as much as possible about the deer, I made arrangements to find out his age. A forensic tooth-aging analysis performed by Wildlife Analytical Labs of Burnet, Texas, confirmed Conan, aka “Mr. February,” was 7 1/2 years old.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a special, anonymous “thank you” to both landowners. You know who you are. And finally, I’d like to thank Dustin Miller of Sunbury, Ohio, for providing me with such amazing trophy photos after the hunt.

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NAW's Best Bucks

As Ty Schaefer and his grandfather rode in the back of the pickup truck, staring in amazement at Ty’s first archery kill, the young hunter thought back to a nearly identical scene two years earlier.

Back then, Ty had just shot a big 16-pointer in gun season, and he and his grandfather had shared a similar ride in the back of Ty’s father’s truck.

“He told me that day that I’d never kill another buck this big for the rest of my life,” Ty recalls his grandfather saying.

It took him just two years to prove his grandfather wrong—thanks to a massive buck that would rank as one of the finest ever taken by a Pennsylvania bowhunter.

A SCOUTING TOOL
Even at only 23 years old, Ty doesn’t lack in hunting experience. He killed his first deer with a gun at 15, then took five in the span of six years. His 16-pointer, which was estimated to be 5 1/2 years old, was shot during a drive in 2010.

Before the 2012 season, though, Ty began seriously considering archery hunting. A number of his friends from work bowhunted, and it would give him an excuse to spend more time in the woods to scout for gun season. Ty did some quick research and bought a used bow from another hunter.

“I literally bought it a week before the season,” Ty says.

Armed with extensive knowledge of the land and access to several properties around his Fayette County home, the new bowhunter hit the woods. But other than a brief, far-off sighting of what looked to be a mature buck, his bow career got off to an inauspicious start. October came and went with Ty seeing only limited deer activity.

Although he knew the area had potential to produce quality bucks, Ty didn’t know that after the end of the 2011 season, at least two other local hunters had captured trail camera pictures of a buck whose headgear would push 150 inches.

“I had no idea at all about the buck,” Ty notes. “Including my uncles, we have four cameras out, but we hunt a little bit of a different location than where my house is.”

A New Stand
On Nov. 8, Ty got off work early and prepared to hit the woods. Some of his recent bowhunts had been busts, due in part to the effects of Superstorm Sandy sweeping through the area. He considered heading to a stand he’d frequently hunted, but with time running short that afternoon, he wondered if he’d have enough time to hike the 30 minutes to the stand.

Ty gave his mother a call, and she reminded him that a nearby neighbor had granted him hunting access. With that property only five minutes or so from his front door, the bowhunter decided to give it a try.

He found his way to the spot around 3:15 p.m., only to discover what barely amounted to a platform stand. But set up in a staging area between a grass field and a nearly impenetrable thicket, it appeared to be in a prime location. Ty decided to try hunting right there.

There was deer movement within minutes. Around 4:30 p.m., Ty saw a buck chasing. A grunt to gauge the deer’s reaction brought no response, so Ty grunted again. But the deer disappeared.Shortly after that, a doe stepped out of the thicket behind the stand. She then fed within shooting distance for more than 20 minutes. Then Ty heard a buck grunt in the same direction from which the doe had appeared.

“When he stepped out, he was already 25 yards away,” the bowhunter recalls. “I knew he was big. I just didn’t know how big.”

The buck began walking to Ty’s left. As the archer turned and drew, the buck stopped. Ty settled the 20-yard pin a bit high and released.

“He kicked a little bit, but I had never shot a deer with a bow, so I didn’t know how well I’d hit him,” Ty recalls. “I watched him run, and he hit a downed tree about 40 yards away and went down.”

After a brief search, Ty and his dad found the brute. And that’s when the animal’s true size became obvious.

“We were in shock,” Ty says.

A Ghost Buck
As Ty texted photos of the deer and friends from around town came to visit, word spread about the nearly perfect 10-pointer. After seeing the buck, a local hunter knew it was the same one that had appeared on his trail camera in late winter 2012 after already dropping one antler.

Another hunter also told Ty he’d captured the buck on camera between the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Others said they had spotted him in fields at night. But one common theme was that no one reportedly had ever seen the buck during legal shooting hours.

“It’s pretty mountainous here, but there’s a good bit of farms with corn fields around the area,” Ty says. “Plus, the area he came from, even though it’s only 100 yards or so from a road, is so thick you can’t crawl on your hands and knees through it.”

Ty had the buck scored by Boone & Crockett and Pope & Young official measurers, and the results exceeded his highest expectations. With four tines longer than 10 inches and only 3 3/8 total inches of deductions, the buck would officially net 172 4/8.

Bob D’Angelo, Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Big Game Scoring Program Coordinator, confirmed it will be the state’s No. 4 all-time archery typical when the record book is updated for 2013.

What’s Next?
On the evening of the kill, Ty and his grandfather took nearly the same ride in the back of the truck as they had two years prior, when the elder hunter had offered what at the time had seemed infallible words of wisdom.

“He said, ‘Ty, you need to understand that you’ll never kill another buck this big in your life,” the young bowhunter remembers with a laugh. “I told him ‘Pappy, that’s the same thing you said two years ago.’

“He was speechless.”

With the same bow he began with in 2012, Ty went into the 2013 season in hopes of topping his personal best yet again. The young whitetailer of course has many who doubt he’ll ever do it, but the hunter himself isn’t one of them.

“I’m a complete believer in Pennsylvania’s antler restrictions,” he says. “I see bigger and bigger deer every year. A lot of people say that I’m lucky. I say, if you spend a lot of time in the woods, something good will happen.”

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NAW's Best Bucks

You’ve often heard the saying, “Big bucks don’t get that way by being stupid.” Well, Illinois deer hunter Jason Buss can vouch for it.

He encountered one of those big and not-so-stupid bucks in the fall of 2011, while bowhunting 200 acres of his father-in-law’s land in Logan County. Buss slowly turned his head to scan the area, and to his amazement, that slight motion resulted in his being pegged by a giant typical. The massive deer already had locked onto Buss’s position in the tree; before the hunter even could get his bow in hand, the giant was gone.

Two weeks later, basically the same frustrating scenario was repeated. This time Buss was in a different stand, but the outcome was the same: The buck saw him and left in a flash. And he didn’t reappear at all for the remainder of the season.

In spring 2012, Buss found a matched set of sheds from a very large typical in the general area where he’d encountered the buck in bow season. With high hopes the giant was still alive, he started the 2012 bow season determined to not repeat his mistakes of the previous year.

One of the questions frequently posed to successful trophy hunters is, “How do you kill big bucks?” The most immediate and obvious response often is, “You have to hunt where they live.” This might sound like a snide remark, but it isn’t. You can hunt hard all season—but if a big buck doesn’t ever travel that area, you simply aren’t going to kill him.

As best he could, Buss had eliminated that concern. Because of the sheds he’d found and general knowledge of the property, he was sure a big buck lived in the vicinity. At least, as far as it was possible to be sure. It was a bad year for EHD-related deer deaths in the region, and Buss had no scouting camera photos of the deer to reassure him he was still around.

In late October 2012, Buss was again bowhunting the property when he saw what looked like a good buck. Picking up his binoculars to get a closer look, he was thrilled to see huge antlers. Of course, that led to the problem of holding the binoculars steady. It rapidly became obvious that this was the giant typical Buss had encountered the year before.

The good news was the buck didn’t know anyone was around. The bad news? He was 200 yards from the tree stand, more than a little out of bow range.

Buss continued to bowhunt the buck, but without luck. Then, on the evening of Nov. 15, he drove to the property to do a little looking around. Buss planned to hunt there on the first day of gun season, which would open the next morning.

The hunter pulled up to a spot where he could glass a large CRP field from an elevated vantage point. He had a tripod stand located between the CRP and a finger of timber that connected to adjacent fields.

Just before dark, Buss caught movement going across the CRP field into an adjacent timber. With his binoculars he was able to see a couple of does crossing the CRP—and they were being followed by that monster buck.

I’m not going to the tripod stand tomorrow, Buss told himself. I’m just going to set up on the ground next to the creek that borders the CRP field.

The first morning of gun season was clear, with a perfect wind blowing from the CRP field toward the creek. Buss got started a little later than he’d planned and had just got set up near a cluster of trees with the creek to his back as daylight approached.

As the hunter got settled in with his back to a big tree, he saw five does headed right toward him. He slunk as low to the ground as possible, hiding in the tall grass in front of the trees. Buss was literally lying on his stomach with a doe feeding only three yards away. Fortunately, though, none of the deer could smell him, and somehow none saw him, either. After several minutes they moved off through the CRP toward the adjacent bean field.

When the does were about 100 yards away, they suddenly became alert and started looking behind them. A small buck came out of the cover and started checking them. But he soon started acting nervous and quickly moved away from the does. What was going on?

The next thing Buss saw was a lone doe entering the bean field. Except she wasn’t really alone. Following closely behind was the giant typical!

Buss watched as all of the does and the big buck fed in the bean field. The hunter had his Mossberg 500 Slugster sighted in with Winchester Supreme Elite slugs (375 grains) for 100 yards. He guessed the distance to the buck at a little over 100 yards.

At first Buss hesitated, thinking the shot was too far. But then he thought, I can make that shot. And if I don’t try it, I may never see the buck again.

Still undetected by the deer, Buss took his time and set up his shooting sticks while trying to remain calm. After placing the crosshairs of his 4×32 scope on the buck’s kill zone, he slowly squeezed the trigger.

“He jumped up with all four feet off the ground, then hit the ground running,” Buss remembers. Within moments, the great buck and all of the other deer were out of sight.

After the shot, Buss called a friend he knew was hunting the adjacent property. He talked with him about the shot and how the buck had reacted. They decided it would be best to not go after the deer immediately. So Buss quietly left the area and met another friend, Rob Deters, who had volunteered to help him look for the buck.

At about 2:30 p.m. Buss and Rob started looking for the deer in the direction he had gone. Buss stepped off the distance and found the shot had been taken at 133 yards.

After several tense minutes with no luck finding the buck, Rob took off in another direction. Moments later Rob yelled, “I found him!”

When Buss walked up to the buck and got his first close look, he knew this was indeed a giant. After tagging the buck and taking a few minutes to let the whole scene sink in, he went to his truck and trailer and unloaded his ATV.

Once the hunter got his cape and antlers to Terry Day of Life-Like Taxidermy in Jacksonville, Illinois, the magnitude of the kill really became clear. Terry measured the antlers and came up with a gross “green” typical score approaching 200 inches. That was when Buss decided the massive rack definitely needed to be officially scored after the required 60-day drying period.

The Buss buck is a basic 10-point typical with a single 2-inch sticker. Usually when a big typical gets older he starts putting on abnormal points that reduce the net typical score. But while this buck appeared to be 5 ½ to 6 ½ years old, he was still exceptionally “clean.”

The great main beams measure a perfectly matched 26 1/8 inches each, and the G-2 and G-3 tines are all over 11 inches. The most striking thing about the rack, however, is its palmation. The third circumference measurements on each side are amazing. One is 8 2/8 inches, the other 7 7/8! The exceptional mass and palmation carry all the way out on the beams, with fourth circumference measurements of 5 6/8 and 5 0/8.

My first thought, upon seeing this buck for myself, was that it looks a lot like Wisconsin’s legendary James Jordan buck. That former Boone and Crockett world record from back in 1914 scores 206 1/8 net as a straight 5×5. Buss’s Illinois buck had a gross typical score of 197 0/8, with a net of 190 4/8.

Any typical with a net score of 190 inches or better is in truly elite company, and that’s especially true of basic 5x5s. Buss’s buck is one of the most massive and high-scoring 10-pointers you’ll ever see.

The hunter’s decision to “try something different” and not go to his tripod stand on opening morning made the difference. “Sometimes you have to do something out of the ordinary,” Buss notes.

Oh, by the way, his wife points out, there’s another secret to his success. “He married well,” she says of her husband.

Now, Buss swears he wasn’t a deer hunter when they met, and that before then he didn’t even realize his wife’s father owned 200 acres of some of the best deer ground in North America. At least, that’s his story…and he’s sticking to it!

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NAW's Best Bucks

With a fairly recent move to the countryside and some land under my family’s feet, I was looking forward to seeing which whitetail bucks were roaming our piece of southern Saskatchewan soil for the 2012 hunting season.

Earlier in the year I’d drawn both cow elk and either-sex moose tags and had been successful in filling them. I was hoping my luck would continue during deer season.

In midsummer my friend Steve and I had set up a few stands, cameras and feeding locations in spots where there was a lot of deer sign. As summer faded and a ton of practice arrows were flung, I was ready to bowhunt. But while a few deer were seen and a couple fruitlessly stalked, early season ended without success.

I live in a wildlife management zone that has no centerfire rifle season, so my next goal was to get within muzzleloader range of a good deer. Thanks to a few years of practice and experience, I was pretty comfortable shooting out to 150 yards.

On opening evening of archery season I’d seen a huge buck feeding along the brushy edge of a slough. Because he was moving slowly away from me, I climbed down from my tree to attempt to get closer.

He was near a hay bale blind I’d set up a few years prior for muzzleloading. But despite my best efforts at keeping quiet, it was noisy stalking with the long, uncut hay underneath my boots, and I ultimately spooked him.

Over the next two months, it seemed that every time I went hunting there were a lot of moving deer, grouse, muskrats or coyotes playing. Despite constant action of one kind or another, nothing caught my interest or came close enough to get me to raise the bow or muzzleloader.

The sitting, watching and waiting are what make whitetail hunting so exciting to me. All those days when that huge buck doesn’t appear make that one big moment so special.

Oct. 25 rolled around, and finally the monster that had haunted my dreams showed up! It wasn’t in the flesh, though—rather, I got an image of him on the trail camera. There were a few good bucks showing up by this point, but no others as impressive as him. He truly was a buck of my dreams, and I had all of my attention focused on closing the deal.

All of the photos had been taken in the middle of the night, and they were sporadic. He is way too smart, I told myself. It will be tough to even get a look at him in the daylight. As the season continued the trail camera showed the buck was becoming more active and traveling more, but I still didn’t have a single photo or sighting of him in shooting light.

It definitely wasn’t for lack of effort. I’d spent no shortage of time in the field, and it was wearing on me mentally and physically. But I continued on and spent every spare moment hunting, even to the discontent of my wife and kids at times.

The rut seemed to be picking up, and in the field I was beginning to see more movement, with even a few pretty good bucks chasing does past my stand. I tried rattling for the first time with some success. I brought in one really nice buck at freight train speed but held off the trigger; I still had visions of that monster in my head. While I had “shooter’s remorse” afterward for not taking the shot, I’m now really glad I didn’t.

After spending part of Nov. 17 with my wife, Kenzie, and our kids, Tanner and Alexa, I gave in to Kenzie’s encouragement that I hunt that afternoon. But it was a strange sit; nothing was moving. The hours passed and I found myself starting to quietly pack up a bit early.

And I questioned why I was in that spot again. Am I missing something? I asked myself. Did I set up wrong? Where are the deer?

Just then, I glanced off to the side and caught movement in the brush. A quick look with the binoculars and my first instincts told me it was a doe; the body seemed fairly small. But then something caught my eye. The head rose just a bit, and I thought I could make out a rack.

I pulled out my rattling antlers, which were already down in my bag. I figured rattling was worth a try, since legal shooting light was quickly ticking away.

After I’d worked the antlers hard for a few seconds I could see that they were sparking interest; the buck didn’t come in at breakneck speed as the other one had, but he definitely had changed his angle of travel. In fact, he now was heading straight at me.

I kept glassing as the buck came through an opening. He looked big and seemed to be getting bigger as he came in! Seconds turned to agonizing minutes as I watched him slowly move through the thick brush.

Finally, the deer came into the open within my shooting range. And in an instant, I was all but certain it was him! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it, and my hands began to shake frantically.

I gently lifted my muzzleloader to my shoulder as the buck stood there at 120 yards. I tried to calm myself and breathe as I watched him through the scope. Meanwhile, he stood there with his head up, looking around. I tried to look only at his body and not his antlers.

Focusing hard on the buck’s shoulder, I squeezed the trigger. I heard the “whack” and watched him jump, kick high in the air and spin around. But then he just stood there! I couldn’t believe my eyes!

I reloaded as fast as anyone could have in that situation. My actions were on autopilot, but I was in the deepest state of deer-hunting panic I’d ever experienced.

When I looked up after reloading, I saw the deer had moved about 15 yards closer to me. I took aim again, and this time when I shot he went down instantly. My arms flew into the air, and I jumped around like a kid after hitting his first home run. I’d just shot the monster!

I reloaded again and made my way over to him for the final check. His antlers began to look more and more like pure craziness, better in person than any picture I’d seen. I just stood there in shock, trying to take it all in.

I sent a couple of messages to hunting buddies and snapped a quick photo before starting my long way back to the house to get the Rhino.

As I drove it back to the scene of one of the greatest moments on my life, I began to worry that I might break something off the rack, as there were points going in every direction. But then I realized I wouldn’t be able to load the deer by myself anyway.

I called Steve and asked him to come out and lend me a hand. But he was already excitedly halfway there with his dad in tow. Steve parked, hopped onto his quad and followed my tracks to where I was.

Handshakes and shouting filled the air as we stood around the buck in awe. With careful hands we loaded him up and took the return trip to the farmyard. We winched up the deer and raised a toast to him, to good friends and to the season.

Then we caped him out and headed down the grid road to drop off my trophy with Al at Country Taxidermy.

I’ve thought a lot about the hunt for that deer and how everything came together at the end. I have to say thanks to Heath, Blair and Pat, who measured the buck for the Henry Kelsey Club listings, our provincial record book, as well as all of my other family and friends who supported my effort to take the new Saskatchewan non-typical record.

It definitely was a season I’ll never forget—and as I write this, I can’t wait to hit the bush again.

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NAW's Best Bucks

Hunter: Brett Carman
State/County: Ohio/Adams County
Score: 194 7/8
Gear: Horton Express crossbow

Brett Carman nabbed an astounding non-typical buck on his 154-acre “whitetail paradise” in Adams County, Ohio.

Carman first spotted the 20-point buck on his Moultrie D55 IR game camera a few weeks before he killed it, but he had yet to see the buck while hunting. On Nov. 3, while hunting one of his favorite stands on the edge of a 25-acre wooded sanctuary, he first saw the buck in real time. As the wind picked up out of the southwest, placing him in a compromising position, Carman considered packing up his gear for a different stand. But a feeding doe at the edge of the thicket of woods caught his attention and kept him at bay.

Then entered the huge non-typical. An amazed Carman continued waiting, hoping the doe would lead the buck in his direction without the wind giving up his location. However, luck was not on his side that day, as the buck chased a doe through a bottleneck and into the woods. Fearful he had lost his opportunity, Carman left the stand disappointed and knew it would be days before he had another shot at the buck…if at all.

Four days later, Carman returned to the area for an early morning hunt. Conditions were optimal and Carman’s hopes were high as he saw four small bucks and nearly 25 does before 7:15 am. Less than an hour later, Carman spotted his buck trailing two does and heading his way. Confident that his Scent-Lok suit would continue to mask his smell, Carman readied his Horton Express crossbow and took aim.

At 37 yards the buck stopped and gave Carman his opportunity. He squeezed the trigger, hitting the deer in the chest and sending him about 40 yards before “he went down like a bag of hammers.” After 30 years of deer hunting, Carman finally bagged his giant.

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Aaron Joliff

Aaron Milliken

Barry Turner

Bill Winke

Bo Cocannouer

Brian Herron

Brian Hollands

Carter Rice

Dale Gertz

Dorothy Shaffer

Dylan Beach-Bittner

Fred Swihart

Garry Greenwalt

Garry Morris

Jay Price

Jeff Danker

Jeff Iverson

Jordan Dressler

Josh Barnard

Joshua Earp

Lindsay Groom

Lucas Cochren

Matt Ford

Michael Morgan

Mike Giarraputo

Mike Moran

Paul Keller

Payton Mireles

Pete Alfano

Randy Walk

Rich Baugh

Richard Buker

Robert Gramoll

Ryan Dietsch

Shane Frost

Stanley Suda

Travis Trimmer

NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Aaron Joliff

Aaron Milliken

Barry Turner

Bill Winke

Bo Cocannouer

Brian Herron

Brian Hollands

Carter Rice

Dale Gertz

Dorothy Shaffer

Dylan Beach-Bittner

Fred Swihart

Garry Greenwalt

Garry Morris

Jay Price

Jeff Danker

Jeff Iverson

Jordan Dressler

Josh Barnard

Joshua Earp

Lindsay Groom

Lucas Cochren

Matt Ford

Michael Morgan

Mike Giarraputo

Mike Moran

Paul Keller

Payton Mireles

Pete Alfano

Randy Walk

Rich Baugh

Richard Buker

Robert Gramoll

Ryan Dietsch

Shane Frost

Stanley Suda

Travis Trimmer

NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Aaron Joliff

Aaron Milliken

Barry Turner

Bill Winke