It was the day before the last day of South Dakota's 2005 "north" rifle season and most of Brad Janecke's friends had already tagged out. Brad had been holding out for a mounting size trophy. He was hunting in Day County on acreage belonging to the Lesnar family. At about 12 noon, Brad caught a glimpse of a buck and a doe standing on a hill. The two deer had been disturbed by a tractor on the adjacent property.

"They were heading into my section," Brad said. "All of a sudden they started running as hard as they could. I took aim and connected with the buck at about 250 yards but he didn't go down. Since he was headed toward a nearby tree line, I tried to shoot again but my gun missfired. Apparently it didn't cylce another shell when I ejected the first.

So now I began a long tracking job that lasted about three hours. Fortunately there was a lot of snow on the ground. I finally tracked him into a big slough and he got up in front of me at about 20 yards. This time I was able to put him down for good. The buck had a 20-inch inside spread and 25-inch main beams. With a total of 13 points, he green-scored 162. This was probably the greatest hunt of my life. I was hunting with one of my best friends, Mike Lesnar, and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to top this buck!

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