After a week of bird hunting in Clay County, Kansas, Utah’s Bill Plowman traded his shotgun for a bow and went after whitetails. He nailed this 9-pointer as the buck trailed a doe past his tree stand on Nov. 17. The gross score is 153 3/8.

Impressive mass and width are obvious features of this Virginia buck, which Chuck Napier arrowed in South Hampton County, Virginia. Chuck made a 15-yard shot to anchor the thick-antlered 8-pointer.

Pennsylvania is working hard to improve its deer herd, largely through antler restrictions designed to reduce the overall buck harvest. Roger Kingsley’s 11-point muzzleloader trophy shows what can happen when Keystone State bucks have a chance to reach their prime. The buck, shot on Dec. 2 in Bradford County, has a gross B&C score of 139 1/8.

Danny Watson poses with son Kevin’s wide-racked 8-pointer, which was taken in Shelby County, Tennessee. Kevin got the impressive whitetail on Dec. 26, during the Volunteer State’s gun season.

Georgia’s Belle Anne Bowen was only 10 years old when she shot this wide 8-pointer on the Winship Ranch in southwest Texas. The 23 5/8-inch buck weighed 185 pounds. The girl’s trophy was shot on Dec. 29, which is only a little past peak rut in that part of North America.

Dave Hackett of Waterloo, Iowa, arrowed this great buck in Des Moines County at 3:05 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2002. Here’s how it happened, in the bowhunter’s own words:

“I had been changing tree stand locations for five days straight, morning and evening, I was seeing several bucks at shooting time, but not one of them was what I was looking for. I was becoming a little dismayed. I can’t say the weather was really cooperating either; it wasn’t as warm as (2001), but in my mind it wasn’t cold enough to get the big bucks chasing does during the day.

“Sometimes you start thinking to yourself that you must be doing something wrong. The mind starts going back over the countless articles and stories you have taken in and revisiting past experiences over the years. Then I remembered reading an article and talking with my hunting buddies, Mark Graham and Dean Duhl, about how sometimes big bucks could already have moved by shooting time. I decided to be in my tree at 2 p.m.

“I remember getting into the tree and getting settled down and comfortable at exactly 2:15. I laid my head back against the tree and mumbled, “Well, Lord what do you think? Have we done it right this time?” I sat there for the next few minutes, praying, I had my eyes closed, and then I opened them — just in time to see this buck already in mid-air, coming over a fence I was 40 yards from. When he landed on the other side, he did not make a sound. It was like an Olympic gymnastics event in which the gymnast “sticks” the landing. It was amazing! He shook and twitched and then just stood motionless, taking in the timber before him.

“I knew I was going to shoot this deer if given the chance. But he started to walk down the fenceline away from me. I went into a panic. All I could see was the whitetail of my life walking out of bow range. I had to stop him somehow!

“I quickly went for my grunt tube, but the stupid thing was stuck down inside my shirt and coat, and all I could do was to hit a small, almost inaudible grunt. I thought, This deer is never going to hear this. Then, all of a sudden, his ears perked and turned toward me and he took a sharp right turn in response to it and started coming down a hill straight in front of me.

“I went to full draw with my PSE Concorde as soon as he made his turn and looked down the hill. I still had no shot. He was just moving too fast to get a clean arrow off coming down the hill. I kept waiting for him to get into an opening and stop or slow down just for an instant, but no such luck. He passed by the left side of my tree before I could get an arrow off. So, still at full draw, I backed to the edge of my tree stand and lean backward away from the tree in order to shift my bow at full draw to the other side for a shot. (This would have been nearly impossible had I not been using a “Biscuit”-type arrow rest and wearing a safety belt.)

“I don’t think I had taken breath yet. My heart was pounding so hard I knew the buck could hear it. Finally, he started walking along a trail I had calcu
lated to be 25 yards from my tree and downhill — but brush and saplings would not allow a clean shot except for two shooting lanes.

“Missing the opportunity for the first lane, I waited for him to walk into the next. Unbelievably, he stopped in his tracks just before walking into the second lane and made a 180-degree turn (for no reason I could see, other than to make me pass out and fall out of my tree) and headed out again.

“I knew I only had that one lane left to let an arrow go before he’d disappear into the timber. Quick, I thought, grunt again. I did, no louder than the first time, but this time he heard it and stopped dead center in the middle of my last shooting lane. I already had my bow aimed there, and when he stopped, I let the string go.

“The shot hit both lungs, and the deer didn’t go more than 30 yards before he twitched and fell dead in a ravine. After I knew he was down and was staying down, I finally breathed. I had such an adrenaline rush going through my system that when everything started to slow down, I couldnÂ’t stand up any longer. My legs got weak and started to tremble; I had to sit down before I fell out of my tree stand.

“The rest of the story is in the pictures, the continued shaking and trembling that took place in my body afterwards and the joy my hunting buddies and I had reliving the hunt and hauling this beautiful animal out of the timber.”

When North Carolina resident Steve Jones got to Manitoba for his first Canadian deer hunt, he found the weather to be as brisk as he’d feared. But this massive 18-pointer undoubtedly took some of the chill out of the air. Steve’s great non-typical, shot on Nov. 27 near the town of Grandview, has a double main beam on the left side and multiple drop tines.

Mark Stickley, a resident of The Plains, Virginia, found the buck’s right shed in 1992 but didn’t see him that year or the next. Finally, during the first week of the 1994 bow season, Mark saw him three times but never got a shot. The next week, the hunter moved his stand to another spot near the thicket, waited for the right wind — and bingo. The 14-pointer has an 18-inch spread and nets 142 0/8 P&Y points.

Not all of the hot rutting activity occurs in November. Bowhunter Donald Baker, who lives in Centerville, Pennsylvania, caught this great 9-pointer chasing a doe on the evening of Oct. 30, 1999. Donald’s stand was in a big oak in a goldenrod field. The air temperature in that part of northwestern Pennsylvania was 40 degrees at the time of the kill.

If you were to bag a deer with this much mass and a 22-inch inside spread, you’d figure you’d shot the bull of the woods. Russell Maverick of Pitt, Minnesota, insists he didn’t. Hunting near home on Nov. 10, 1993, Russell took the lungs out of this bruiser at 400 yards with his .30/06. The shot was taken as the monster trailed a doe at 7:30 a.m. After having watched this buck and another one all through early bow season, Russell claims, “The other buck was bigger!”

Susan Moore of Harpersville shot these big Shelby County bucks during the 1992-93 season — and she did it while still-hunting. Her weapon of choice was a 12-gauge auto loaded with rifled slugs. The buck to Susan’s right took third place in the Ladies Division of the annual Alabama Deer Hunters Exhibition.

Avid bowhunters love Ohio deer hunting, and well they should: Gun season doesn’t open until after Thanksgiving, meaning the peak rut is reserved for stick and string. Gary Gray took advantage of that fact during the 1997 season, arrowing this monster 12-pointer on Nov. 20. The deer had a “green” score of 173 7/8 B&C points, thanks in part to 29-inch main beams. Gary shot the deer near his home in Columbia Station.

On Dec. 5, 1996, after four days of seeing nice Saskatchewan bucks but
nothing huge, Mike Wright of New Liskeard, Ontario, got his chance. A small buck ran a doe into heavy cover, attracting the attention of this brute. At first the big deer wouldn’t come out of the cover to run the smaller buck away, but finally he gave in to temptation. When the 260-pound 13-pointer exposed the front half of his body briefly, Mike dropped him with a bullet to the lungs. The buck has a gross B&C score of 184 despite having snapped off a tine.

On Dec. 20, 2000, In early November 1994, Kevin Millican of Peculiar, Missouri, made a mock scrape in his Harrison County hunting area. The first day Kevin hunted there, he passed up a small buck that came in to check the scrape. The next day, Nov. 13, this long-tined 8-pointer swung in downwind of the location, and Kevin was ready for him. An 80-yard shot with a .50-caliber muzzleloader dumped the big buck, which has impressive G-2 tines of 13 and 12 6/8 inches. The rack scores 143 3/8 B&C points.

On Dec. 20, 2000, Brian Sanders of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was hunting a farm in Montgomery County, Maryland, when he heard big antlers clashing. Brian nervously waited more than an hour for one of the combatants to appear. Finally, after several small bucks had passed his stand, the muzzleloader hunter squeezed off a shot on this monster 4×4. The high-racked deer has a 22 7/8-inch inside spread.

After missing this 165 2/8-inch 14-pointer on opening morning of muzzleloader season in Christian County, Kentucky, Hopkinsville’s Bruce Delaney decided to hunt the stand again that afternoon. The buck obliged Bruce by returning to the scene, and this time the shot was true. The massive drop-tined deer, which dressed out at 200 pounds, was the first whitetail Bruce had taken with a blackpowder firearm.

Going into the fall of 1993, 18-year-old Kevin Lovett of Tishomingo, Oklahoma, was a rookie bowhunter who didn’t know what to expect. Within two hours of climbing into a bow stand for the first time, he’d broken a state record.

Kevin’s historic hunt occurred on the afternoon of Oct. 3, in a funnel between a thicket and a field on his family’s Johnston County dairy farm. The young sportsman had been sitting in the tree for only a little over an hour when he heard something jump the fence to his left. It was a monster 12-pointer, the biggest buck Kevin had ever seen, and the hunter’s heart began pounding. But then, just as Kevin was about to pick an aiming spot, another big buck jumped the fence and started coming down the same trail. This buck’s rack had at least 20 points!

Although this second buck’s rack wasn’t as wide or tall as the 12-pointer’s was, Kevin decided to try for him instead. After the first big deer passed without spooking, the archer drew and made the 18-yard shot on the second one. The shot wasn’t as far forward as Kevin had intended, but an 8-person search team located the deer at 11 p.m.

After the 60-day drying period, the monster whitetail netted out at 190 5/8 P&Y points, making him the state’s top non-typical by bow. The Lovett buck held that ranking until 2001.

The harder a spot is to hunt, the better the odds that it’s holding a mature buck. Steve Greenwood of Grantsburg, Wisconsin, proved it during the 1989 gun season in Wadena County, Minnesota. As Steve stopped to take a break on a deer drive through a particularly nasty swamp, he saw antlers moving slightly in the grass. A quick neck shot with a .30/06 dropped the trophy 8-pointer. Steve bagged his buck on the last drive of the second day of the November season.

When another hunter in the area shot a 6-pointer and began yelling excitedly, Patrick Duffy figured it was time for him to get out of his tree stand and try something different. The resident of Crawfordsville, Indiana, is glad he did. On a hastily arranged deer drive with friends later that day, he shot this 25-inch 10-pointer. Patrick’s Montgomery County trophy has a gross B&C score of 171 points, and he dressed out at 225 pounds. The hunter scored on Nov. 17, 1994.

During the 2001 deer season in northern Idaho, Moscow’s Ken Preston discovered some huge rubs. Determined to find the buck that had made them, Ken decided to spend some time still-hunting the area. After two days of slipping around in a steady rain, the hunter walked right up on this stunning 13-pointer and shot him. Ken’s trophy has a 23 2/8-inch inside spread and a gross B&C score of 183 1/8.

In the area around Tabor City, North Carolina, bucks with live weights of 200 pounds or more are exceptional. But on Oct. 29, 1991, 13-year-old Jake Fonvielle showed that they’re around. Jake was watching a beanfield when the big 8-pointer came out with a doe at 5 p.m. The young rifleman made a 45-yard shot to down his trophy, which has a gross B&C score of 139 and a live weight of 211 pounds.