It took over four years, but Mike Beatty's 294-inch buck from Ohio finally was named the P&Y world record. Photo by Ohio Division of Wildlife.

Soon after Mike Beatty shot a giant non-typical buck in Greene County, Ohio, during the 2000 hunting season, he realized that the deer might be the biggest ever taken by a modern-day bowhunter. Within three months the massive buck was being featured in an exclusive report in the February 2001 issue of North American Whitetail magazine, causing a stir within the entire deer-hunting community.

But getting the monster officially proclaimed a bowhunting world record took longer than you might imagine, for one simple reason: Mike shot the buck with a compound bow having more than 65 percent let-off. At the time, a Pope & Young Club rule prohibited entry of any trophy taken with such a bow, though they are legal for big-game hunting in Ohio and almost everywhere else in North America.

After years of discussion about dropping the rule, in 2003 P&Y members voted to do so. Mike immediately entered his trophy into the record book, and sure enough, at its next panel-measuring session -- this past spring, in Springfield, Missouri -- the club officially recognized the Beatty buck as its new No. 1 non-typical whitetail. With a net score of 294 0/8, the Ohio deer easily topped Del Austin's 279 7/8-inch Nebraska giant, which had been the world record for more than four decades.

Mike had figured the buck was likely to become No. 1. But what happened next caught the hunter totally by surprise. At the banquet wrapping up P&Y's biennial conference, Mike also was presented the Ishi Award: the club's most prestigious honor.

"When they called my name, I was stunned," Mike says. "I don't even remember walking up to get the award. All I remember is that everyone was standing and applauding, and there were camera flashes going off all around. I was in shock. I thought for sure the award would go to one of the other hunters who'd taken a new world record. I actually felt kind of guilty for getting it."

The Beatty buck was but one of five new archery world records unveiled at the P&Y conference. The other four were for Alaska brown bear, grizzly bear, mountain caribou and non-typical American elk. Like the Beatty buck, each was a true giant of its kind.

The Ishi Award was named for the man purported to be the last of the Yahi Indians. Discovered in northern California in 1911, Ishi lived in contact with modern society for only five years before dying of tuberculosis. However, in that short span he did much to teach and inspire two modern-day bowhunting pioneers, Dr. Saxton Pope and Art Young. It is for these men that the Pope & Young Club was named, and the Ishi Award keeps alive the memory of the native American who taught them so much about hunting with stick and string.