North American Whitetail

Paul Keller Buck: The 231-Inch Wisconsin Wonder

Paul Keller — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:33:56 +0000

As I nocked an arrow, I sat back and started to reminisce a little bit about the “good old days” of my hunting career. I thought back to my days of cutting truck loads of firewood as a boy to earn enough money to make the trip to Hansen’s archery and purchase a dozen aluminum arrows and some Bear broadheads for the upcoming season. Of course, I would always have to spend a little time looking at the new compound bows…

I can still remember the grief that I got from the old-timers for “selling out” when I bought my first compound, and for years before I could drive, I would plead with my dad for hours until he would agree to take me to the local hunting meetings and sport shows, where local guys like Floyd Pluger and Jack Bazile would talk about a “new” concept called Quality Deer Management (QDM). Sometimes, back then, it didn’t go over real well, but these guys were practicing it long before it was the cool thing to do.

I had to laugh a little when I thought back to my early archery seasons and how it took me a couple of years to finally score on my first buck—a spike—and how my 10-year-old son, on a mentor hunt with me, had just shot a 13-point, 156-inch buck, his first with the bow, just a few days ago on opening weekend. How times change…

‘Really Good Bucks’
The flick of a deer tail brought me back to reality, I chastised myself for letting my mind wander, but, hey, that’s what memories are for, right? I thought to myself, You’d better pay attention. There are some really good bucks roaming these ridges.

We had been getting some great trail camera photos of a handful of bucks that would span from the 150s to 170s and one in particular that would probably go well into the 200s. The neighbors and I had been getting trail camera photos of him all summer, and I was hoping to be in the right place at the right time when the opener rolled around.

I had been practicing some form of QDM on this property since the early 90s. I’ve found that, for me, the key to being successful is hunting high and trying to be as scent-free as possible. I use the property very little, if at all, during the off-season. Shed hunting is the only time that I actually walk the entire piece of property. I try not to put any pressure on the local deer herd. I guess I call it the “Less is More” theory.

My strategy is to do most of my scouting with trail cameras, and I check them at most once a week. You can get a pretty good idea of where a certain buck is traveling by monitoring your trail camera photos. Then, all you have to do is connect the dots to get a travel pattern set up for him. If I have a buck using the property on two days out of seven, I will only go after him on the days that he should be there, hunting only the right wind.

If the wind is wrong, I stay off of the property, because sometimes you only have one chance at a buck. Pressure him and he’s gone. Obviously, this is nothing that you haven’t heard before, but I truly believe this is one of the big keys to my success.

Opening Day
Saturday, the opening day of bow season in Wisconsin, brought with it a south wind, the absolute worst for trying to get close to such a seasoned deer in the area he was using on my property. I elected to take my son to a different stand to try to get him on his first buck. We didn’t have any chances for a shot the first night. Sunday arrived with another poor wind ranging from south to straight west.

I so wanted to try for the big buck, but I decided to hunt with my son again, and it was the right decision. At 5 p.m., he arrowed a nice deer, and at 7 p.m., we were hugging and exchanging “high fives” over his first buck. I’ve had the chance to do some really cool things in the outdoors, but watching my son take his first buck far surpassed anything that I have accomplished in my time afield.

On Tuesday morning, I checked the weather for our area: a north-northeast wind was expected, just what I needed. I headed for home, excited by thoughts of the hunt and a possible encounter with the big buck swirling in my head.

As I turned onto my road, I was greeted with the sight of the farmer who rents my cropland chopping the corn off of the field that butts right up to the woods and small food plot where I had been getting most of the trail camera photos of the giant buck for the last three weeks. The sight of this shocked me enough that I almost drove into the ditch!

Our area gets pressured very heavily by “shiners”—people who cruise the back roads with a spotlight, searching for deer in open fields. The previous spring, when I saw the local farmer was planting about 90 percent corn in the fields surrounding my property, I was overjoyed. This would give the deer some much-needed cover to conduct their daily routines without being bothered by spotlights.

I had originally wanted to hunt the buck from a ground blind on the edge of a food plot where I had been getting most of the trail camera photos of him. Now, I had a full-scale corn harvesting operation just a few yards from the food plot where I wanted to sit. I thought to myself, If he comes down to the field and sees that his sanctuary is gone, it will be a death sentence for any chance of getting close to this buck. I knew that once he realized the standing corn was gone, he would drastically change his travel patterns.

On the Fly
It was time to devise a new plan. I went back over my trail camera photos of the deer. When he came into the small food plot and I would get photos of him, he was usually headed northwest. This meant that he was using one of three trails leading into the small food plot coming in from a bedding area about 20 acres away. I had a Shadow Hunter enclosed blind about halfway between the bedding area and the small food plot.

It was in an area of overgrown pasture, with extremely thick cover around the blind and just four shooting lanes carved out of the brush and planted with clover. With the north wind, two of the three trails that led to the food plot were on the upwind side of the stand within 35 yards, but one of the trails was about 20 yards downwind of the blind. I thought to myself, If the corn was still there, I wouldn’t chance it, but with the harvesting underway, I have to try it. It might be my one and only chance at the buck.

I went through my usual ritual of showering and spraying down and slowly slipped into the Shadow Hunter. I only opened three of the eleven windows in the blind, one overlooking each trail that the buck could possibly take to the food plot. For fear of deer getting downwind and busting me, I left the clear windows up to reduce my scent. It would be tough to get the windows down for a quick shot, but my main concern was not alerting any deer to my presence.

Around 4:30 that afternoon, I finally got a break. The farmer quit chopping corn, and shortly thereafter the deer started moving. A little after 6 p.m., I spotted a 9-point buck with a forked G-2 that was in the same bachelor group as the big buck.

They often showed up on the same trail camera photos together. He came in on one of the upwind trails north of the stand and started to browse on some of the clover planted in the shooting lane. Thinking that the big buck might be with him, I slowly slid the window down and ranged him at 32 yards. I attached my release on the string and waited. The 9-pointer fed for a few minutes, looked back a couple of times and then continued toward the food plot.

I waited at the ready for another 20 minutes, to no avail. I took my release off of the string and slowly slid the window back up. A few minutes later, I noticed a couple of does feeding in the shooting lane to my east, I glanced out of the window on the downwind side to the south and noticed a small 6-pointer making his way down the ridge to the food plot.

He walked into the downwind shooting lane at 20 yards and stopped. Initially he seemed undisturbed until he threw his head up and stared in my direction. After a few seconds he turned and nervously walked back up the ridge on the same trail that he had come in on. How could he have smelled me? I looked out my east window at the does and they were still feeding undisturbed. After watching the does for a few seconds, I glanced out of my north window to where the 9-pointer had passed 30 minutes ago, and there he stood.

The 200-inch non-typical had his head down, feeding on the clover. The small 6-pointer downwind of me must have caught a glimpse of the big buck or scented him. Wanting no part of the older, bigger buck, the 6-pointer turned and retreated back up the ridge.

I slowly reached up and slid the clear window down, the blustery north wind masking any sounds I might have made. As I slowly lifted the bow for the shot, the buck’s head was still down. I drew and anchored in that old familiar place on my cheek. I looked through the peep and put the sight pin on the deer.

The whole shot process seemed to last an eternity, but in reality it probably only took a few seconds. I settled the pin behind the buck’s shoulder, but just as I was getting ready to release the arrow, the massive buck lifted his head and looked right at me. That sight will be with me forever.

I slowly started to put pressure on the release while holding the pin steady behind his front shoulder. The shot surprised me a little, but the arrow was on its way. A split second later, it buried itself in the buck’s vitals right where the sight pin had been. The buck whirled and was gone.

Record-Book Buck
As I sat back in my chair, the gravity of the situation started to sink in and the nerves started to hit me. Over the next several minutes I replayed the shot in my head a few of times. Did the arrow deflect? Did I get enough penetration? I gave the buck a few minutes to exit the area, and I slowly crawled down and slipped out of the woods, headed back to the house.

When I walked into the house, my wife, Tammy, and our son, Seth, greeted me with huge smiles on their faces because, over the years, me coming in early from hunting could only mean one thing. After sharing the story with them, I called a few close friends to help track. After a couple of hours we assembled at the site of the shot, and the reassuring shout “I’ve got blood” started us on a 75-yard blood trail that ended with that old familiar, “There he is!”

We knew from the trail camera photos that the buck was a giant, but nothing can prepare you for the moment when you finally get to lay your hands on him. It was a very special night, not only because of the hunt but because of special people who shared in it. I am truly blessed to have grown up and live in an area like this. To my friends and neighbors, it takes a community to grow a deer like this, not just one person. If you’ve seen this deer on your property, have trail camera photos or have found his sheds over the years, you had a hand in making this deer what he was.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

(Editor’s Note: After the mandatory 60-day drying period, Paul Keller’s Waupaca County non-typical was scored by a panel of measurers, tallying a net non-typical score of 231 4/8, which ranks it as the No. 4 non-typical bowkill in Wisconsin history.)

What Every Hunter Needs to Know About Venison Nutrition

Hank Shaw — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:21:49 +0000

Photo by Holly A. Heyser.

I rarely eat beef anymore—and never at home. I haven’t bought beef for the house since 2004, opting instead to rely on venison my girlfriend and I bring home as one of our main sources of red meat (ducks and geese being the other). The effects have been profound.

Our cholesterol levels are very low—despite the fact we like to cook in butter and duck fat—and we feel lighter and more active with our wild diet. Every time we eat a big hunk of BBQ brisket or a grilled ribeye, we feel great when we’re eating it but afterwards get kind of grumpy and feel overfull. Beef just seems so fatty and coarse to us after a steady diet of game.

That’s because it is, especially compared to venison. Let’s face it—venison is just better for you when it comes to nutritional value, and it’s also one of the most ethical, natural ways to pursue the meat-eating lifestyle.

Lean and Mean
Let’s start by considering the nutritional side of things. Venison is leaner than beef and is slightly higher in protein, ounce for ounce. Also, deer, elk, moose and antelope rarely develop the intramuscular fat—called “marbling” in beef—so what fat is on a deer is typically around the edges of the muscles, not within them. This makes it easier to trim, if you so desire. That’s not to say venison can’t have a nice layer of fat on it, especially if you live in agricultural areas.

According to USDA data, a 3.5-ounce portion of venison backstrap—admittedly a small portion for me—has about 150 calories and only 2.4 grams of fat. It might be even less if you are scrupulous about trimming your venison. Compare that to a similar cut of beef like a trimmed top loin filet. This same portion of top loin will have roughly 205 calories and—depending on the grade (choice, prime, etc.)—about 10 grams of fat.

Vitamins, Minerals and Healthy Fats
Venison also tends to be far higher in niacin and iron than beef, and is a good source of Vitamins B12, B6 and riboflavin.

What’s more, the quality of the fat is better in venison. That’s because venison has higher levels of Omega-3 fatty acids than beef. The exception is with grass-fed beef, which is similar to venison. The difference is the food source: grass. Grass is a great source of these heart-healthy antioxidants, so unless your deer was morbidly obese and hung out in the grain field most of its life, you’ll be eating healthier with venison.

I know, you’ve been taught to trim every bit of fat off your venison. I’m sorry to inform you, for the most part you’ve been taught wrong. In my experience, venison fat typically tastes a lot like lamb or beef fat, which is rather delicious when crisped up on the grill or in the oven. The exception is deer from truly wild areas where there is a lot of sagebrush or desert food sources. Fat from these deer can certainly be off-tasting.

But there’s a simple way to determine whether or not you need to trim or keep your venison fat. Start by cutting off a few ounces and then chop it up. Put a little water in a small frying pan and set the fat in it. Heat the water until it boils. This will render the fat. Smell it. If the fat smells OK—either lamb-like or beefy—you are good to go. If it smells awful, trim it. Your nose will not fail you.

Organically Free Range
Not only is venison low fat and nutritionally more dense, it’s also about as organic as you get. The caveat, however, is deer herds that camp out in major agricultural fields where conventional or GMO crops make up most of the landscape would technically not be considered organic by the USDA.

To meet the organic requirement of the USDA, meats must be fed organic grain, grass, etc. So even though your Iowa whitetail may taste great and be a lot more “organic” than beef, it would likely not be certified as such by the USDA. At any rate, it remains one of the best meat options out there for the do-it-yourself crowd or the organically inclined.

Where venison really excels, though, is on the issue of humane farm practice and sustainability. You simply can’t get more free range, humanely harvested or sustainable than wild game. Period. Even farmed venison must be raised in a free-range way, because deer won’t survive if confined like cows.

Every deer, antelope, elk or moose we bring home to feed our families has led as free a life as nature allows: no confinement, no antibiotics, able to do what it wanted and breed on its own. So as long as we hunters do our part to ensure a clean kill, the death of the deer is nearly as quick as any slaughterhouse. When compared to life in the wild, a hunter’s deathblow is a hell of a lot better than death by starvation or the slow but lethal stalk of a predator.

Let’s Talk Sustainability
Finally, there may be not be a more sustainable meat than venison. When you think about it, the entire North American hunting system is based on sustainability. Hunters are only allowed to shoot as many deer as wildlife biologists say we can. Numbers are carefully tracked, and once that quota is up, hunting stops. If numbers are high, more licenses are issued and seasons are expanded. In this way deer populations are kept in check.

With that much effort going into the management of a population—which I would argue has been a fairly underutilized resource—a case can be made that venison is one of the most sustainable meats available.

Venison is a protein-rich, lean meat that exists in large numbers across the U.S. and can be legitimately brought from field to table by those who are willing. It’s also the ultimate in free range, humanely harvested and (mostly) organic food.

Something to think about that the next time you slap a mouthwatering backstrap on the grill.

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How to Make Venison Jerky

A committed eater of venison, Hank Shaw hunts, fishes, forages and cooks in Northern California. He is the author of the book Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast and the James Beard-award winning website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. You can reach Hank at scrbblr@hotmail.com.

Father’s Day Gifts for Whitetail Addicts

Jason Herbert — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:33:01 +0000

June is a welcome sight for hardcore deer hunters. The distraction of turkey season is over, mushrooms have come and gone, food plots have been planted and backyard archery targets look like pincushions. June also brings one of the greatest days of the year for proud hunters everywhere—Father’s Day. It’s the one day of year we dads are allowed to kick back and do whatever we want—at least for the most part.

No matter the Father’s Day tradition, one thing is for sure—there’s always more the whitetail addicted dad needs. So for the father on your list, check out our roundup of the best whitetail gear for Father’s Day.

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Father's Day Gifts for Whitetail Addicts

Lucas Cochren Buck: 238-Inch Non-Typical Giant

Lucas Cochren — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:51:02 +0000

Three hundred and twenty steps later, my thoughts were confirmed. No blood, hair or sign of impact indicated that I had missed the deer of a lifetime. My head was spinning, wondering what had just happened in the previous 15 minutes; it happened so fast.

What could I have done differently, and what did I do wrong? My heart was heavy and my stomach was uneasy. How was I ever going to be able to tell the guys that I had blown the shot of a lifetime? I went on to work and broke the news to the rest of our hunting group. The responses were all the same. They were very supportive, which seemed to help ease my pain.

Later that night as I laid in bed, I continued to toss and turn, reliving the events of that morning. The reward for all of the hard work and stress that we had endured as a group over the last three years was right before me and somehow I managed to let it slip away, or so I thought.

Three years ago, the deer was a young, aggressive 3-year-old with a temper. He had dismantled one side of his rack trying to earn a spot in the pecking order. He was a little bigger than the other deer his age, sporting a 150-inch-plus rack, which was more than impressive for a deer his age.

The buck seemed to be a regular on the trail cameras we had been using, beginning early in antler-growing period. That year there was a bigger deer in the woods that our group of hunters was chasing. There were opportunities to harvest the 3-year-old, but everyone had bought into the idea that he would get bigger with age. We had set management goals, one of which was to let the deer reach maturity, which we considered to be 5 years old.

To aid in these management goals, we annually planted 10 acres of food plots consisting of clovers, rye, standing corn and beans. We also used 10 game cameras to help monitor the deer. Game cameras were vital in our management plan, allowing us to know what deer were out there and where they might be located. Based off of pictures, we could gain a good idea of the ages of the animals. With some strategic camera placement, we were rewarded with high quality and quantity of deer pictures.

The following summer came around and there he was again fairly early on, but this time he had a surprise. He was now sporting a small drop tine, which any avid hunter loves. Throughout that summer, we watched him on camera and also watched him a lot feeding in a bean field. I had access to a protected bean field, and I could sneak up a hill without being detected and glass the field. The field was easy to get to, so several nights a week, when the wind was right, I would travel to this spot with binoculars in hand to watch what came out to feed.

At the time there was another deer that we had also been watching that was a year older. Although this deer was a year older his rack wasn’t quite as impressive. Based on our plan, he was the deer to kill this year. He had reached 5 years old and that was considered mature in our books. During these summer scouting trips, both deer would frequently visit the field, sometimes even at the same time.

In early August of that year, we got a picture of the younger buck still in velvet with damage to his rack. He probably would have been a 180-inch deer if he hadn’t had the antler damage, but because he was banged up, it made it easier on us to pass him up for another year. Even though you know that you want them to reach 5 years old before you take them, it is always hard to pass on a deer that would gross 180 inches.

As we continued to become more experienced with our deer management, we felt that we needed to start putting a name with the deer we were following. This gave us an easier way to communicate about the deer without having to explain and describe each deer in full detail each time they were seen.

Naming the deer was a process. Each deer had a name that fit them, and usually had something to do with a unique characteristic that would make them easy to detect. One night as I was looking through pictures with my wife, I told her that someday this deer would be a deer that everyone would be talking about, but we couldn’t find a name that we felt fit him.

As we continued to look through pictures and talk about that deer in particular, I kept pointing out that in the pictures his drop tine was always broken off. That had been irritating the heck out of all of us. As she thought about it she came up with the name “Bankrupt.” Her reasoning was that if the deer was constantly “broke,” he might as well be bankrupt. The name seemed to fit him perfectly, and it didn’t take long for it to stick.

During that season, three of us—Emmett, Sam, and myself—bowhunted this ground, and we had all decided that Bankrupt should get another pass. His rack was not in good condition and he still was a fairly young deer. There were a couple encounters with him but those were far and few between.

As he continued to age, he was also becoming wiser, which made the hunt even more difficult. As we went from bow to rifle season we gained a fourth member to our group, Dustin.

On December 5 of that season, I was able to tag an older deer that ended up being 5 years old. While I was admiring my kill, Emmett had Bankrupt in his sights 80 yards from his blind. My brother-in-law, Matt, was sitting with him, videotaping the hunt. They got some amazing footage of the deer, and Emmett had even clicked the safety off and was ready for the kill. But as he watched the deer, he ended up clicking the safety back on, knowing that the deer had such great potential.

For the rest of the season and past closing day, we continued to get pictures of Bankrupt on camera. This ensured us he had survived yet another season, but it left us wondering how long we would be able to keep this impressive deer our secret.

That spring we did some CRP burning to manage the native grasses, and we found one of his sheds from two years prior. To see and touch his sheds was enough to get everyone amped up for the next deer season. A frenzy of sorts started with the shed hunting after this, and Matt was able to find the match. In Emmett’s shed hunting adventures, he was able to find one side of his rack from the previous year, but as much as we continued to look, we never found the other side for the complete pair.

Trail cameras were checked weekly, and every time our hope was that he would be there. One little glimpse is all we needed, and finally, he was there! The pictures were few and far between, but we were able to get some pictures of him in velvet. These pictures were enough to assure us that the decision to let him grow was a great one. The field I normally scouted had been rotated back to corn, and the beans were on the other side of the ground, making scouting a little more challenging. There wasn’t an easy way to the bean field, and you couldn’t see over or though the corn.

We were going weeks to a month at a time between pictures of the buck. By late August, we still hadn’t seen a picture of him with a full-grown rack. The last picture taken was on my birthday, July 19. We had no idea of his true size or even if he was still in the area. In the middle of August we were out of town and a terrible storm ripped through our area. The damage was unimaginable, 100 mph winds and baseball-size hail did incredible damage to crops, trees and the land in general.

The two forces combined took a fully mature field of corn down to stalks that were barely knee high. The center of our management plan was our resource of trail cameras. They didn’t fare so well in the storm; out of the 10 we had, four were destroyed. The hours spent on cleanup made it hard to get to the good trail cameras to check them.

At this time, killing Bankrupt was one of the last things on my mind. One afternoon I retrieved the memory cards from the cameras that were still functional and figured I needed to go through them to see what we had. What was in front of me was more than I ever thought was possible. We had caught Bankrupt on camera again, and it was almost like he was conducting a photo shoot for us. Based on the pictures in front of me, Bankrupt was doing amazingly well. He had turned into the deer of a lifetime.

Everyone was focused on the upcoming bow season and how we were going to harvest him. We all took to the field with bows in hand, trying to run into him. One thing this deer had never done for us over the years was show any distinct patterns. The area has low pressure, and the bucks roam around freely.

The season rolled on and nobody had seen Bankrupt. There was some frustration mounting and a little fear that maybe someone had poached him. But all it took was one more trip to check trail cameras. That night revealed that there was a three-day window where he presented himself in range during daylight hours. One occasion was Halloween night about 45 minutes before dark. I had lobbied to hunt that night, but family is more important and I took my kids trick-or-treating.

During the peak week of the rut, Emmett was on vacation, and he spent most of his time chasing Bankrupt. One of the few encounters with Bankrupt occurred as Emmett was leaving the stand and heading back to the truck. He saw him across the fence on neighboring property, which we also had permission to hunt. Emmett put a sneak on him and was able to get within 50 yards of him, but the buck was preoccupied with a doe and never offered a shot.

We had finally reached rifle season, which is always the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. The plan was to put in as much time as possible. We run a family-owned fertilizer and chemical business, and with the good winter we were having, it was a busy time. This made it hard to hunt as much as we wanted. I was determined to go out every morning before work and get in at least 45 minutes of daylight. This leads us back to where I started this story.

On the first Friday of the season, I went out like I had the previous two mornings, but this time was different. Three deer came out in front of me, but it was too dark to tell what they were. I could tell two of them were bucks, and in my gut I knew that Bankrupt was one of them. I glassed very intently but could not verify it was him for several minutes until there was enough daylight. In the time I let slip away he had continued to move farther away.

I steadied my rifle and took the shot and he just walked off. I knew I missed and after figuring out how far it was I knew why. It was farther than I had estimated. I climbed down and paced off the shot—320 steps. There was no blood, no hair, no sign of impact. A week had passed since my last encounter. We had been working long days, which made it challenging to get in the deer blind before dark.

My plan was to sneak out to the same field where I had scouted so often before. This cornfield had been devastated by the August storm, which made it a great feeding ground because corn was scattered all around. It was almost 5:15 p.m., so time was running out as I sneaked up the hill.

Knowing the deer would already be out, I had prepared my rifle with the bipod folded out, and I crept gingerly up the hill. I eased over the top to take a peak, and there he was, feeding with some does. I quickly took a seat and steadied my Browning rifle. As soon as I settled in, I took a deep breath, centered the crosshairs on his vitals and squeezed off a shot. Down he went!

The bullet had hit a rib bone and fragmented, and a piece had lodged up in his spine. Matt wasn’t too far behind me; he had walked to this spot not too long after me and had reached the base of the hill when I shot. “I got him,” I yelled, and we hurried out to get a closer look at him. After exactly 181 steps, we were there and he was every bit of what we had hoped. We loaded him up and took him to where we meet as a group, and the celebration began.

The news spread fast and it seemed like my phone was ringing all night with congratulations. Words can’t explain the way I felt being able to take this deer. It is deer like this that make hunting such an amazing experience.

Bankrupt had 26 points and grossed 247 4/8 and netted 238 4/8. This made him No. 12 among the biggest non-typicals ever taken with a rifle in the state of Kansas. I entered Bankrupt in the first annual Monster Buck Classic of Kansas event and he was crowned the non-typical “King of Kansas.” Several people have asked me if I am done hunting. My response to them is it’s not just about the size of the deer. It’s all about our passion for hunting.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Ryan Dietsch Buck: 219-Inch Ohio Bruiser

Ryan Dietsch — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:40:40 +0000

Looking back on it now, I can clearly divide my whitetail hunting career into two “eras”—Before Trail Camera Photo and After Trail Camera Photo. That’s how much my hunting perspective changed after I pulled the memory card from my trail camera on October 16, 2011.

The photo was actually dated October 14, and it clearly showed a whitetail of unbelievable proportions. His rack unquestionably carried the most massive, sweeping frame I had ever seen on a live deer, and his bases were simply unreal. But what held the most importance for me was that the buck was healthy and both sides of his rack were undamaged.

The interesting thing about this deer was that I actually could have shot him on my family’s Ohio farm the previous year, but it was missing something fairly important—the entire right side of his rack.

The buck had walked under my stand in 2010, and instead of picking up my bow, I had grabbed my iPhone to snap of a photo of him. The buck was only carrying his left side, and as deer season was far from over, it seemed odd that he would have shed the right side already.

I remember coming back to the house after that hunt and excitedly telling my father-in-law, Wes, that if this deer carried anything remotely similar to his left antler on his right side, he would easily top 180 inches. I think I even threw out the number 200.

I’ve seen plenty of deer with broken antlers, but I had never seen one broken completely off above the base. At that time in 2010, it was too early in the season for the deer to have started dropping antlers, which had me wondering if this deer had some form of genetic defect that was impeding antler growth on his right side.

As he worked his way around my stand during that hunt in 2010, I fixed my Leica binoculars on his head, trying to determine what had happened to his right main beam, but at 35-40 yards, I couldn’t see enough to make a solid guess. I passed on the buck that year in hopes that he would stick around and grow a matched set of antlers in 2011.

So when I retrieved the memory card from my camera in October 2011, you can imagine how excited I was to find a photo of the buck. From that point on, I knew that if I put in enough time on-stand, it was simply a matter of time and luck for our paths to cross again. I think you probably could have classified my interest in the buck as an obsession. I know my wife would have.

The Sunday following my trail camera discovery, I went to my son’s final flag football game, and then I was off to the farm to hunt. Wes was already in his treestand when I arrived, so I texted him to let him know I was making my way into the woods.

We discussed which stand I should hunt via text message, but I had trouble making a decision. The property has several different stand setups to choose from. Should I hunt the stand 20 yards away from where the trail camera captured the buck’s image? Or should I hunt the stand where I had taken the iPhone picture a year earlier? Or maybe I should hunt one of the other 10 stands on the farm.

I had never debated a stand selection this much in my life, but then again, I had never been pursuing a buck of this caliber. In the end, I settled on the “iPhone stand,” and I climbed in around 3 p.m.

Thirty minutes into the hunt, a young forkhorn appeared about 50 yards in front of me, looking like he was on a mission. An hour after he cruised through, a group of four does rushed through the area, and I knew something—perhaps the giant non-typical—was pushing them. I stood up and grabbed my bow, ready for action, only to be disappointed when the eager forkhorn cruised through again, hot on the heels of the preceding does.

By 6 p.m., things had settled down again, and I was starting to think this hunt would end like so many others, with little activity and no blood. The sun was headed down, and I decided to stand up so that I’d be ready in case the buck did show up.

No sooner had I stood up than I caught movement up the hill from my stand. I didn’t get too excited because I had been seeing so many of the same deer in the hunts leading up to this point. I could see without my binoculars that this deer had a decent rack, and I led myself to believe that it was likely the big 10-pointer I had already passed up twice that season.

I pulled up my binoculars to confirm it was the 10-pointer and immediately spotted a drop tine. I couldn’t believe it! It was the giant non-typical. I laid down a couple of grunts and a doe bleat in his direction, but it didn’t look like he was interested. The buck was just gradually making his way down the hill at his own pace, and it looked like he was on the same trail that the four does had used when they pushed through earlier.

The does had moved into an open area about 30 yards from my stand, and I was desperately hoping the buck would do the same. With my bow in one hand and my Leica rangefinder/binocular in the other, I watched the buck slowly make his way closer. At 38 yards, he hung up, and I readied my bow for a 40-yard shot. There was a tree covering his hind legs and another covering his head and chest. All I had to do was split the uprights.

As I moved my release toward my bow, I could see my hand was shaking slightly. I really could not believe this was about to happen. This was my chance to close the deal. I drew back and tried to get comfortable but couldn’t. My head cover was in the way, and I had to let down and resituate my headgear. Once again, I clipped my release back up to my bow, hand still shaking, and drew back on my bow.

If I let the buck continue walking in the general direction he had chosen, he would likely come into an opening 8 yards closer to my stand, but there was also no guarantee he would take that route. I decided to take the shot I had been given, and I let the arrow fly. I don’t recall the flight path that the arrow took, but the buck mule-kicked like he had been hit. Still, I wasn’t sure if or where I had hit him, and I immediately nocked another arrow in case I got a follow-up opportunity.

The buck ran about 40 yards, then stopped directly in front of me. As I drew my bow, the buck turned to face me, leaving me with only a chest or neck shot. I released another arrow and watched as he turned and bounded 50 or 60 yards away from me. I watched him slow to a walk, believing that I had just missed the opportunity of a lifetime—twice!

I texted Wes to let him know what had just happened, and we decided I would wait in the stand until he arrived after his hunt. That way, I could direct him to the shot locations from the perspective of the treestand.

When Wes arrived, it was completely dark. We started looking for blood or one of my arrows, but it was turning out to be pretty difficult. We walked over to the spot where I had shot the buck the second time, and again we couldn’t find any signs that the buck had been hit.

Obviously, I was beside myself. I had talked about this deer for a year and hunted him for two weeks straight without any breaks until today. The buck finally shows up and I miss him—twice!

“Don’t worry about it,” Wes told me. “You’ll only think about this for the rest of your life…”

We walked to check one final spot—the last place I saw the buck as he had walked away from me after the second shot. We approached the spot carefully, hoping to find the buck lying down, but with it being completely dark and without a flashlight, we would have had to step on the buck to find him.

Up to that point, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what I could have done differently. I kept replaying the final moments over and over in my head. I should have let him take a few more steps, I told myself. That way, he would have been completely in the open. The drive home that night was somber—no music, no funny talk shows. When I got home, my daughter, Ashton, sad, “Don’t worry, Dad. You’ll get another chance at him.”

That made me feel a little better, but I knew that the buck had given me an opportunity, and I had wasted it. Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep that night, and in between dozing off, I would wake up and replay the shot over and over.

The next morning, I couldn’t wait to get up and go back out to the farm to look for the buck in the daylight. When I got there, I went to the spot where I had first shot the buck. Once again, I could find no blood or an arrow. It was the same scenario at the second shot location. I couldn’t believe it.

Finally, I double-checked the spot where I had last seen the buck. About 40 yards into the woods, I could see the monster’s white belly sticking up. I shouted and laughed all the way over to the buck.

When I got there, the first thing I inspected was actually not his rack. I had studied them so much from the trail camera photo that I knew exactly what they looked like. I was more interested in which one of my arrows had brought him down.

The first shot was a complete pass through and couldn’t have been placed better. I think if I hadn’t shot the deer a second time, he probably would have dropped right in front of me, but when he was hit again, his adrenalin took over and he was able to run again.

It was obvious where the second arrow had impacted because the shaft was still sticking out of his windpipe. If the first shot didn’t kill him, the second one would have.

I was thrilled and incredibly blessed not only to have a history with this buck, but also to be able to finally seal the deal. Last but not least, I’m glad I won’t have to “think about this for the rest of my life.”

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Garry Morris Buck: The “40 for 40″ Kansas Monster

Clay Newcomb — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:50:18 +0000

It was mid-afternoon on Nov. 13, 2009, and Gary Morris of Winslow, Ark., was heading south out of Iowa. Driven by a haze of internal frustration, he was headed back to Arkansas six days early. The last three years of planning, anticipation and excitement for his Midwestern hunt had been stolen by an encounter with a 170-inch behemoth buck and a blown 12-yard “chip-shot.”

Reaching the pinnacle of frustration, he called his bowhunting partner, Jaysen Evans, and said, “I am selling all my bowhunting stuff and I am going to buy a crappie boat. Those fish won’t be able to get to me like these big whitetails do. I just can’t take this.”

He was serious, but not serious enough. This is the story of the Garry Morris buck.

Gary, 61, is a taxidermist by trade and has devoted his life to whitetail hunting. The heartbreak Iowa buck was the latest in a long string of “bad luck” that had followed Gary for years. However, Gary’s bowhunting resume is impressive, with numerous Pope and Young-class bucks, several black bears, elk and wild hogs to his credit; he is no stranger to success. But, as Gary said, “I consider myself a good scouter, I position my stands well and I am fortunate on seeing quality bucks, but I have never been able to close the deal on a great deer.”

Somewhere over the course of the phone call with Evans, Gary changed his mind and decided to go back to Iowa. The next morning, out of the same stand he had blown the shot from two days before, Gary arrowed the biggest buck of his life at that time. A heavy horned 150-class Iowa brute. The tables seemed to be turning—little did he know how far they would spin.

The Hunt
It was two years after his fateful decision to turn north and continue bowhunting. Gary had access to a 340-acre farm in Crawford County, Kansas. It was the morning of Nov., 19, 2011, and Gary recalled, “Wind was blowing hard that morning. I didn’t like the feel of the day because I don’t like to hunt in the wind. By 10:30, the wind blew so hard, I actually thought it might take my tree down, so I got down and started doing some scouting.” The weatherman predicted sustained winds of 30 mph and gusts up to 52 mph and a high temperature of 70 degrees—a rut hunter’s worst nightmare!

As Gary hit the ground, he began scouting a part of the farm that he had never been on. Much to his surprise, he found some extremely large rubs that were fresh. With cell phone coverage strong, he called his good friend, Eric Burnett, to relay his find. Gary said, “Eric, if the sign is fresh, this buck is still alive.” Gary knew the property had been heavily hunted the week before.

After hanging up the phone, Gary continued walking and scouting. He was about 80 yards in the timber off the edge of a bean field. It was almost 11 a.m. and howling wind and warm temperature shot Gary’s hopes of a good hunt. Then, despite the moving trees and grass, he spotted the slow, steady movement of deer, walking along the edge of the field 80 yards away. As the deer came into an opening, Gary saw what he had been waiting for the last 40 years to see. It was a giant buck. “I immediately knew that it was the best deer I had ever laid my eyes on,” he said.

As if providence had prescribed it, the howling wind, which earlier in the day was his enemy, had now become Gary’s greatest ally. The wind was blowing directly from the deer to Gary, and he recalled, “I immediately knew that I could move on this deer. He was headed down the edge of the field and every time he would move, I would move.”

Instinctively, Gary knew that this wasn’t an ordinary stalk. The buck would walk for 10-15 yards and then stop. When the buck was walking, Gary was walking full stride en route to cut the buck off. With the blowing wind, the buck couldn’t pick up Gary’s movement. The buck was moving down the field edge and Gary picked an angle that he felt like would eventually get him within range of the buck.

“Within 10-12 minutes I closed the gap to about 30 yards.” Gary said. “At one point, the buck slipped through a small opening and I could have shot, but I wasn’t quite ready.” He remembers thinking he might have missed his only opportunity. Then the buck entered a small, 30-yard by 30-yard thicket on the edge of the field. To Gary’s amazement and disappointment, he watched as the buck began to turn circles, and begin to pat out a bed in the leaves. It was 11 a.m., and he knew the buck might not get up until late that afternoon, or even after dark! He had no shot through the thicket and all he could do was wait.

“I was standing 30 yards from the biggest buck I have ever seen and he was just about to bed down,” Gary said. “Then a huge gust of wind blew through and knocked a big limb out a tree that came crashing down and almost hit the buck!”

The buck jumped, and in a couple of leaps, he was broadside within 10 yards of Gary!

Instinctively, he quickly drew his bow. However, the close movement spooked the buck and he bounded out into the thick timber.

“The woods were thick and I thought I had missed my chance,” Gary said. “Then the buck stopped 35 yards out in the only opening around. I had a small hole that I could see his vitals through. He was quartering away hard, and I shot the buck for 30 yards.”

Gary watched as the arrow appeared to sail right under the giant buck! Gary thought another monster buck had slipped through his clutches! However, upon retrieval of the arrow he was encouraged to find good blood on the ground and on the arrow. He concluded the hit must have been very low.

Ecstatic, Gary called his hunting partner, Jaysen Evans, who was hunting on another farm not far away. After letting the deer lay for three hours, the pair returned to the property in hopes of recovering the buck and ending Gary’s 40-year quest for a giant whitetail. When they pulled into the farm, much to their alarm, they saw three people standing across the field where he had shot the deer. Gary’s heart sank, “What are they doing here? What’s going on?”

As Jaysen and Gary approached the figures, they saw that it was three young boys. The boys had been squirrel hunting with pellet guns and had come across a fresh blood trail and had begun to follow it.

“Quickly, we could tell they were good boys and they were just following their curiosity,” Gary said. The boys said they had found the blood two hours earlier. Gary feared that the boys might have spooked the low-hit buck. In good spirits, Jaysen and Gary recruited the help of the boys to track the buck. The quintet trailed the buck to a bloody bed. The group looked and looked, but couldn’t find which way the buck went when he left. Gary feared that the boys might have spooked the buck out of his would-be deathbed.

After an extended period of time, they decided to split up, leave the blood and simply look for the dead buck. Within a few minutes Gary and Jaysen heard the excited screams of one of the young boys, “I found your buck! I found your buck!” Jaysen and Gary ran to the scene and found the boys standing in awe of the giant, 300-pound-plus Kansas whitetail. Gary had his buck of lifetime.

After examining the body, Gary confirmed the arrow had hit low and behind the shoulder. The arrow didn’t even hit a vital organ, but must have cut a major artery somewhere in the shoulders.

The buck stands out for many reasons. He sports 25- and 26-inch main beams and has exceptional mass, over 40 inches. The buck is only 15 7/8 inches wide and his tallest tine is 9 5/8 inches, but the buck has 29 abnormal points, almost exclusively around the massive bases. With 40 scoreable points, the buck was measured by Boone and Crockett scorer Kirk Kelso and had a final net non-typical score of 221 5/8 inches. This is an unbelievable highpoint in Gary’s bowhunting career.

Sometimes the wheels of the whitetail world turn slowly. Especially when your goal is to attain something that all amounts of human effort, striving, planning, practice and desire can’t produce on their own—a 200-inch buck. In closing, Gary said, “To kill this buck in the worst possible conditions is the most unbelievable thing to me. I’ve hunted in pristine conditions for years and never seen a buck like this. Big deer in the Midwest just don’t move in the middle of the day when it’s hot. I just got there at exactly the right time, right before he bedded. What are the chances? It was like I could do no wrong on this buck. Sometimes things are meant to be, and this was one of them.”

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Field Dressing Deer: Fix Your Most Common Mistakes

Gordon Whittington — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:47:45 +0000

So it’s hunting season and you’re standing over a deer you’ve just “reduced to possession,” as writers of hunting regulations like to put it. For some hunters, what comes next is the most intimidating, frustrating part of the whitetail experience. But making sure that just-killed buck or doe ends up as savory venison need not be difficult. Avoiding bad decisions while field dressing a deer is what matters most on the table. Here are some of the most common pitfalls to avoid.

1. Poor Shot Placement
The issues with a deer carcass often begin at first touch—the first touch of an arrow, bullet or slug, that is. Even if you’re using the right bullet or a shaving-sharp broadhead, improper shot placement can let the animal live for some time after the shot. In addition to increasing risk of losing the deer, a poor hit results in higher stress, which can degrade meat tenderness and flavor even if you do recover your quarry.

Of course, the projectile can also cause direct damage to otherwise fine venison. This is especially so with a bullet or slug, which send a shock wave through tissue around the wound channel. The concussion can degrade meat to the point it’s not worth keeping. Making a good, ethical shot minimizes meat loss—and your frustration.

2. Delaying the Inevitable
Many hunters eagerly charge off in pursuit of the deer they’ve just hit, not giving it adequate time to succumb. But then, after securing their kill, they parade it around all day in the back of the truck before dressing it out. How big of a mistake that is depends on how (and how often) the animal was shot, how much stress it was under prior to its death and how warm the weather is.

A whitetail’s body is well insulated, particularly if the animal is big, fat and in its winter coat. Even if the air temperature is cool, it takes body heat a long time to dissipate from the carcass. Keep in mind, high temperatures quickly turn a few harmful bacteria into many.

This isn’t to say you must start field dressing as soon as you tag your deer. But don’t drag the ungutted critter around all day if you can avoid it. There’s no upside to letting the body temperature stay high, even for the time it takes to show your deer around town. Those entrails and organs need to come out eventually, so get it over with.

And in case you’re wondering, no, field dressing deer on your hunting land isn’t likely to spook others out of the area. So don’t get too worried about that. Of course, disturbing where you hunt is never a plus, but once the animal has been located, taking a few more minutes to get it gutted probably isn’t going to run off additional game.

3. Using the Wrong Tools
The joy of taking a deer can turn to frustration if you’re ill equipped to get it dressed out. The process even can be dangerous if you try it with the wrong tools.

Unless you’re adept at chipping flint into hand tools, the most obvious item needed for field dressing is the right knife in the right condition. A poor knife with a workable edge won’t stay that way for long. Nor will a great piece of steel that starts out dull magically sharpen itself during gutting.

Just about any piece of metal more rigid than aluminum foil will get you inside a deer eventually. But how quickly, easily and safely depends on knife design, quality and condition. Making a sound choice is the topic of a feature all its own, but suffice it to say you need a quality blade if you want to do quality work for long. Just ask a butcher.

In addition to a good knife, several other items are handy to have on hand. First, consider a product that’s brand new to the market. It’s called the High Tail, from Viking Solutions. This handy device solves a couple of big problems hunters—especially solo hunters—encounter in field dressing whitetails. First off, as its name suggests, the High Tail elevates the deer’s back end slightly and positions it properly for gutting.

Secondly, adjustable straps on each side hold the animal’s back legs securely in place throughout the process. The word on the street is the product will be available August 1, just in time for early season.

Another must is a pair of field dressing gloves, such as the disposable, arm-length version from Hunter’s Specialties. Along with shielding you from deer blood and odors, these lower your risk of getting an existing skin cut or scrape infected. And yet another handy HS product is the Butt Out. It’s a simple plastic tool that helps you remove the deer’s anus without splitting the pelvis. And speaking of that part of the anatomy, if you’re one who wants to split the pelvis during field dressing, it’s handy to have a small hatchet or bone saw. Even a pair of pruning shears (“loppers”) can do the job quickly and safely.

4. Cutting Without A Clue
Now that you’re actually ready to work on the animal, take a deep breath. Think before you make even a single cut.

Start by simply looking at the deer. Which organs were punctured by your shot(s)? How is the carcass positioned? Do you need to move it in order to make field dressing easier, quicker, safer and/or less of a mess? Now—not halfway through gutting—is the time to assess what you’re working with and come up with a plan to dodge problems.

It’s a plus to have assistance in dressing out any large game animal, and a whitetail is no exception. If the deer is still limber, for a single hunter it’s like trying to wrestle a Slinky. If it’s already as stiff as a board, it’s hard to hold the legs apart. Either way, it helps to have help. So if it takes a 15-minute drive out of your way to get someone to assist in the process, that’s typically gas and time well spent.

Working up a sweat hacking away at the deer doesn’t reduce the overall time it takes to end up with a clean carcass—it adds to it. Slow and steady is the way to go, particularly in terms of safety. While field dressing a deer, you might have to operate more by feel and knowledge of its anatomy than by sight—because your hands typically are out of your sight inside the body cavity. Don’t make any sudden movements. When in doubt, back out and think before making another cut.

In some deer camps, a crowd typically gathers to watch the hunter gut his or her deer. This is understandable, as it’s part of celebrating the kill. But it’s hardly helpful. In fact, I’m convinced more sliced fingers occur as a result. The distraction of having too many “helpers” should be avoided. At most, you want only two assistants to help you position the carcass, hold legs apart, shine a light inside the rib cage, etc.

Actually field-dressing a deer is a fairly simple, straightforward process. Huge buck or scrawny fawn, the stuff inside the body cavity is in the same places, and it comes out the same way. The main complicating factors are the possible presence of a broadhead (yours or some past hunters’), fractured bone that could cut your hand or arm and whether or not you want to preserve at least part of the cape for taxidermy purposes.

5. Improper Cleanup and Beyond
Even after dressing out the deer, you’re still a few steps removed from dining on juicy backstrap. What happens after the entrails leave the animal has a lot to do with the quality of venison you’ll ultimately enjoy.

First off, if you have a way to wash out the carcass with clean water, do so before all of the blood dries. Note the inclusion of the word “clean.” Not all clear water is sanitary—that mountain brook 20 feet from where your buck fell might be swarming with bacteria or parasites that will sicken you. No water at all beats the wrong water. Even fresh snow can be an option for “scrubbing” the interior of a gutted deer.

Getting your prize home in good shape means keeping it cool and away from insects, dust and diesel fumes. Throwing a bag or two of crushed ice into the body cavity, then covering the animal with a tarpaulin to cut down on wind and bug exposure tends to help. There also are specialized products, such as the Buck Bag and Trophy Tote, for transporting a whole deer or just the head and cape, respectively. I’ve used both and like them a lot.

Avoiding exposure to contaminants is just one reason to avoid skinning your deer at the time you field-dress it. Unless the carcass will be processed right away, the default choice should be to leave it unskinned. All scientific studies of venison point to better overall meat quality when the meat is aged for a week or so at a temperature of 34-38 degrees Fahrenheit, with the hide on. This helps retain moisture, a key factor in palatability.

Conclusion
You have time, effort and money invested in every whitetail you shoot. Taking the right approach to field dressing deer will help your family get the most out of that investment. With a good plan in place and the right tools in hand, the results of a successful hunt can be tastier than ever.

Barry Turner Buck: 217-Inch Missouri Bruiser

Barry Turner — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:00:28 +0000

It was late September when I received an email from my buddy Mike that was titled “deer pics.” I hoped that we would have some nice bucks on camera, and as I read the short message that contained the words “Code Name: BIGSHOW,” I knew that this was no ordinary email.

I opened the attachments and to my surprise, I discovered one of the biggest bucks that I had ever seen. Immediately I thought, How am I going to get close to this deer during shooting hours?

All of the trail cam pictures that we had were between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. I would typically hunt every weekend, but my priorities were my 10-month-old daughter and my wife, who was seven months pregnant at the time. I knew my time in the woods would be limited, but perhaps the lack of pressure would turn out to be an advantage in tagging this monster buck.

I made it out to the woods in early October for a morning hunt. After the morning hunt, I hung a stand in a spot I had hunted in previous years. The location is in a flat bottom with a creek running along the north and east sides and a steep, brushy hillside on the west, making it a very secluded area. I thought this would be the best place to catch the buck during daylight hours. I hunted the newly hung stand in the middle of October for a morning hunt but didn’t see anything. This was my last time in the stand until November.

On November 10, I arrived at our lease around 12:15 p.m. The weather was calling for highs in the upper 40s with a northwest wind at 10-15 mph. I got dressed in my Scent-Lok Savanna and sprayed down my clothes, bow and decoy. I had my video camera and camera arm in the truck, but I but couldn’t carry anything else in with me, so with regret I left it in the vehicle. I arrived at my stand location about 12:45 p.m. and started looking for the perfect spot to set up my decoy. I set the decoy up out in front of me, slightly to my right and upwind, with its head pointing to my left. I sprayed the decoy down again and climbed into my stand.

The afternoon started off slowly. I didn’t see anything for the first two hours, but around 3 p.m. I noticed movement up the hill to my left. I saw a doe running, and I knew that a buck was likely chasing her. I caught just a glimpse of antlers through the thick brush but couldn’t tell how big the buck was. I blew on my grunt call but got no response, so I thought I would rattle since I had my decoy set up. I hit the horns together and the woods erupted. There must have been 15 deer up in the brush on the hillside, and they took off in the other direction. I just blew this hunt, I thought.

About an hour later, I heard a grunt from up on the hill, so I decided I would respond with my own grunt. The buck responded to my grunt a couple of times and then he shut up. I never caught a glimpse of him.

For the next 45 minutes, the woods were quiet. I had been seeing quite a few deer but they were holding up on the hill to my left and thick brush stood between us. I knew from hunting this location in previous years that as evening approached, deer would move down off the hill into the small, secluded bottom where my stand is located.

I heard a noise behind me, and I slowly turned my head and spotted a raccoon walking through the woods. I turned back around and immediately saw a buck was walking down the hill about 90 yards away. The buck was coming in to my stand location from the northwest and began working his way through the tall, mature trees at an angle toward the southeast. I knew that this buck was definitely a shooter based on his tine length.

I reached over with my left hand and grabbed my bow off the rest, never taking my eyes off of him but also making sure that I was concentrating on his body movements and not his rack. He worked his way toward the decoy, stopping about 20 yards from it, holding his head up high, smelling the air and pawing at the ground. After about 30 seconds he put his head down. His ears were pinned back and he started circling behind the decoy’s position. That’s when I drew back for the first time. I have never been so nervous in my life; I was literally shaking when I started to draw back on him.

I drew my bow back and settled the pin on him, waiting for a clear shot. He took three steps and stopped again, still facing me. I held as strong and still as possible while he again smelled the air and pawed at the ground. At this point he was 15 yards from the rear of the decoy and he was taking his sweet time about things.

The buck stood there tasting the air, sizing up the competition. He was in plain view, nothing stopping a clear shot between him and I. The problem was he was still facing me at a bad angle with no opportunity of a humane shot. It had been minutes since I drew back my bow. My arms were shaking horribly and I couldn’t hold my draw any longer. I had to let down.

The buck then started circling behind the decoy again with his ears still pinned back and the hair on his back standing up. As I mentioned earlier, I had positioned the decoy with his head pointing to the west. “Bigshow” was moving fast and seemed like he had something to prove. I drew back again and settled my pin on him, waiting for a clear shot. He was standing about 5 yards directly behind the decoy and I was hoping that he would stop before he demolished it. He did, but unfortunately he was directly behind a group of trees. He was only 18 yards away now, but I didn’t have a shot at his vitals. I had to wait, and I hoped that he would take two more steps so I had a clear shot.

The waiting game was on now, but he didn’t seem comfortable standing behind the decoy. Curious about who was invading his territory, he stood there tasting the air with his head held high, pawing at the ground trying to get the decoy’s attention. While he was taking his time evaluating the situation, I was praying that he would just take two more steps forward so I could release an arrow into his vitals.

All of a sudden, he decided to spin around and take two steps back the way he came, turning to look back toward the decoy. There were about five limbs covering the deer’s vitals. I wanted to take the shot badly but there was no room for a clear, ethical shot between the limbs. At this point I had been holding my bow at full draw for several minutes. Again I had to let down.

It took about 30 seconds for “Bigshow” to move again, and when he did it took everything I had to draw back for the third time. He took about four steps away from the decoy and then he turned back to face the decoy for a final look.

As he stood there, quartering away at 25 yards, I settled my pin on him and let the arrow fly. I made sure not to move until the arrow hit the intended mark. “Bigshow” didn’t take a step until the arrow was already through him. He ran about 50 yards to the north before stopping next to a brush pile. He turned to look back toward the decoy and disappeared behind the brush pile. There was a loud crash and I didn’t know if it was him going down or him jumping the creek to make his getaway. It had been 15 minutes between the first time I saw him walking down the hill and what appeared to be the best shot of my life.

Once he disappeared, I sat down and hung my bow up. I reached for my binoculars and started looking for the arrow. I found the black and camo arrow, but I couldn’t tell if it had good blood on it or not. It had been about five minutes since I made the shot, and I decided since darkness was setting in I would sneak down quietly and take a look at my arrow.

I climbed down and found my arrow covered in blood. Since the ground was wet and I could move quietly, I decided to walk up to the brush pile to see if he was lying behind it. As I approached the brush pile, I didn’t see any blood and I was starting to get nervous. I looked back to the treestand and realized that I was not on the same trail that the buck had taken. I then took two steps to my right and spotted pools of blood covering the trail.

I followed the blood trail around the brush pile and immediately spotted Bigshow. I walked up to him and couldn’t believe how big his rack was. He had split G2s on both sides and an extra main beam on his right side. I immediately called Michael, a friend of mine who was hunting on part of our lease across the road. He was still in the stand and didn’t answer the first time I called, so I called him again and proceeded to tell him that I shot “Bigshow!” I let him know that I had already found him and that I would meet him at the truck.

As I headed for the truck, I called my friend, Nick, to tell him the great news, since he wasn’t coming up until the following day. I couldn’t describe how big he was on the phone and told him that he had to come up early the following day to see “Bigshow” for himself. Once I made it back to the truck and got my hunting clothes off, Michael and I grabbed the four-wheeler and headed to get my buck. Once we got “Bigshow” back to camp, I green scored him at 213 7/8 inches net non-typical. The following morning we took some field photos of my buck, and the rest of the morning neighbors were stopping by to see the awesome animal I was lucky enough to harvest.

After the 60-day drying period, Pope and Young scorer Rick Bergloff came to my house to officially measure “Bigshow.” Rick came up with 23 scorable points netting 217 5/8 inches, which ranks 6th all-time in Missouri. I love being able to go out and pursue my passion of bowhunting, while sharing it with my wife, daughter and friends. I now sit back and think to myself what an unbelievable animal and hunt that was. Seeing an animal of this magnitude in his element was an experience I will never forget!

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Rich Baugh Buck: 177-Inch Iowa Stud

Rich Baugh — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:58:39 +0000

My hunt for Bud began in August of 2008. I was clicking through some trail camera pictures and an incredible young buck popped up. I immediately said, “Oh, buddy,” hence the name Bud. This was a phenomenal 2-year-old buck. He had a 6×5 typical frame with some forks and stickers and had great mass. With all the junk he had as a 2-year-old, I felt like he would eventually grow into a giant non-typical. The problem was that he was only a 2-year-old and I knew that it would be three long years before I would hunt him.

On my farm, I’ve decided that genetically superior bucks will get the pass until they are 5 1/2 years old, and Bud definitely fit that category. The big question was whether he would still be around in three years. I vowed to do everything I could to make my farm the best it could be for him and to also harvest the mature bucks that shared his core area. I felt like if I could harvest the dominant buck in his area every year, he would be less likely to stay on my farm.

Fortunately, Bud lived in the heart of my 470-acre farm, so I felt like he had a decent chance of surviving several hunting seasons. I got hundreds of trail camera pictures of him that year and also found his shed antlers in the spring, so I knew he survived the 2008 season. I couldn’t wait to see what he turned into as a 3-year-old.

In August of 2009, I was pleasantly surprised when I started running cameras again. Bud had blown up into an awesome 3-year-old that would easily score in the mid-160s. The interesting thing was that he was only a 5×5 this year and was a clean typical. It seemed odd that he lost a point and all his kickers. During the 2009 season, I had the pleasure of seeing and passing Bud on numerous occasions. My heart would always skip a beat as soon as I saw him. I was also fortunate in 2009 because I was able to harvest two different 5 1/2-year-old bucks that lived in the same area as Bud. Things were shaping up, but I still had two years to wait.

In 2010 when I started running cameras, I immediately got pictures of Bud right where I expected. It was amazing how many inches he had put on from 3 to 4 years old. He had turned into a giant 6×5, and I estimated he would score in the mid-180s.

The 2010 archery season was a blast! I passed Bud twice and saw him numerous times. I’ll never forget the look on my cameraman Dan Johnson’s face when Bud walked by the first time and I passed him. He thought I was crazy! I was also fortunate to harvest two additional 5 1/2- year-old bucks that year, including one that lived right in Bud’s core area. I knew by killing that buck, Bud would definitely be in his core area the following year.

After the 2010 season, I couldn’t wait to see what Bud turned into as a 5-year-old. If he put on another 20 inches like he’d done the previous year, I felt like he had a chance to push the 200-inch mark. I also thought it would be neat to document his antler growth the entire growing season, so I made sure my Whitetail Institute 30-06 mineral sites were replenished in early spring and started running a camera on the one I expected Bud to show up on. I started getting pictures of him in mid-April, but I couldn’t really tell much from them. By mid-June he was really putting on some inches and some mass, but it only looked like he was going to be a 5×5.

It was obvious he was going to be a giant though, so I was very excited. In early July, I was clicking through more pictures and was shocked to see how much Bud had grown in two weeks. He now had G5s on both sides and was developing a few kickers. There was no doubt at this point that he was developing into a world-class buck. Now I just had to wait until archery season to hunt him!

During the months of July, August, and September I was busy planting food plots. I planted a total of around seven acres of food plots during that time. My food plots were broken up into brassica blends, cereal grain blends and Imperial Whitetail Clover. The problem was that we had a severe drought in southeast Iowa last summer and the plots didn’t grow as well as normal.

Once the food plots were planted, I had to focus on getting ready for the hunt. Fortunately Bud lived right in the middle of my farm in an area that is fairly easy to hunt. I also had the benefit of patterning him over the past three years, so I had several Lone Wolf stands in place well before the season that I thought I could kill him from. The only missing link was that I had a strategic spot where I needed a Banks Blind. There were no trees to hunt this particular spot and I needed a place to hunt his core area on rainy days. One of the drawbacks to filming my hunts is that I usually have to sit at home on rainy days. The Banks Blind would protect the camera equipment and allow me to keep hunting Bud even if it rained.

In early September, I ordered a Whitetail Properties Edition four-man Banks Blind. The next day I placed it adjacent to a point of timber in between two food plots that Bud frequented. I also placed a Reconyx trail camera facing the blind (about 25 yards away) to monitor the deer activity and to see if Bud was comfortable with the blind being there. Fortunately, within a week, I started getting pictures of Bud walking between the blind and the camera!

Now I just had to wait for my cameraman to arrive on October 28 to start hunting. That was a long wait! Some long-distance scouting and Reconyx pictures during the last few days of October indicated that Bud was still in his core area and was walking by several of my stands on a regular basis. It looked like I was going to have a short hunt. Boy was I wrong!

I started hunting Bud on October 29 and saw him the first two or three times we sat. Then he just disappeared. It wasn’t until November 2 or 3 that I realized he was already with does and had moved into a different part of the farm that is practically unhuntable. During the next two weeks, the only times that I saw Bud were from my house with a spotting scope about half a mile from his core area. In each case, he was with a doe.

I kept hunting him in his core area because I knew he would eventually return, but it was apparent that he was breeding does in a different area and probably wouldn’t be back in his core area until the post-rut.

On November 16, Dan had to leave and I started hunting without a cameraman. At this point, after hunting non-stop for over two weeks, I was worn out. I had seen and passed some nice bucks, but I really had my heart set on Bud. I continued to grind it out and finally saw him back in his core area the morning of November 19. I was set up in a small block of thick timber that he liked to bed in. At about 9 a.m., Bud ran into a food plot on the south side of the timber, looked around for does, and took off into the timber. He was on a mission to find his next doe!

I was on pins and needles thinking he would exit the timber right under the stand I was in. He always used the same trail when entering or exiting the west side of this timber. After a couple of hours without spotting him, I decided that he had bedded down and probably wouldn’t get up until mid-afternoon.

The wind was supposed to shift that afternoon and would be wrong for the stand I was in, so I decided to move to my Banks Blind. It was located on the east side of the block of timber on the other side of the food plot. Bud had walked right by it that morning, so I felt like I would have a pretty good chance at him that evening if he exited the timber on the east side.

I saw several deer that afternoon in the food plots, but Bud didn’t show up again until 3:45. Unfortunately he walked out of the timber right underneath the stand that I had been in that morning, which was 300 yards from the Banks Blind. He was on a mission too. He was running across the narrow field into a big block of timber in search of does. Right before he disappeared into the timber, I grunted as loud as I could. He stopped and stared in my direction for what seemed like an eternity. I grunted once more very softly and he immediately turned and started walking my way.

I quickly opened up the two windows on the Banks Blind that I thought I could shoot him out of and got ready. It was awesome watching him walk those 300 yards. He would stop about every 50 yards and grunt really loud. Once he checked out the first food plot and didn’t see any deer, he knew the grunt must have come from the other food plot around the corner. As soon as he committed to walking around the corner to check out the other food plot, I knew that it was about to happen.

I’ve got to admit that after three years of watching this magnificent animal grow and after 22 days of hunting him, I was a nervous wreck. I drew my bow when he was about 30 yards away angling towards the blind. When he walked through the first window he was broadside at about 20 yards but he never stopped. I didn’t want to stop him if I didn’t have to. Unfortunately he stopped between the two windows for around 30 seconds. I was afraid to move because I wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Finally, he started walking again and entered my second shooting window. Since he obviously wasn’t going to stop, I stopped him with a mouth grunt and immediately squeezed off a shot.

I watched as my arrow covered the distance seemingly in slow motion and disappeared through his chest. He immediately bolted into the timber and all was quiet. In an instant, my three-year quest for this buck had ended. As I replayed the shot over and over in my mind, I felt like I had hit a little farther back and a little lower than I wanted to. I elected to wait until morning to track him.

That was a long, sleepless night! At daybreak the next morning, my wife, Jacqueline, and 11-year-old son, Parker, joined me to look for him. The blood trail was excellent from the beginning and after about 20 yards I realized he was bleeding really well and wouldn’t be far. Another 50 yards and there he was! I can’t describe the feeling of finally laying my hands on this giant whitetail. All the years of watching him and passing him had finally paid off!

After we loaded Bud into the truck, I pulled the card from the Reconyx camera that I had facing the blind. I was hoping that I got a picture of him walking by the blind before I shot. Sure enough, the Reconyx had taken three awesome pictures of Bud while I was in the blind at full draw about to shoot.

We spent that entire day taking pictures and videos of Bud. Late that evening, we finally had a chance to put a tape to his antlers. His 6×6 gross typical frame was 194 5/8 inches and he had nine inches of abnormal points. As a typical, Bud would net 177 4/8 inches, and as a non-typical he would net 195 4/8 inches—a Booner either way you look at him! The most distinguishing characteristics about his rack are his long, 27-inch main beams and his mass. His main beams and all of his tines had exceptional mass.

I want to thank God for blessing me with an awesome farm and for giving me the opportunity to harvest a buck of this caliber. For me, there is nothing more exciting from a hunting standpoint than harvesting an old mature buck with whom I have plenty of history.

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Shane Frost Buck: 216-Inch Non-Typical Trophy

Clay Newcomb — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:43:26 +0000

Whitetail fate played its hand for Arkansas’ Shane Frost on January 23, 2012. The setting was in the big-timbered, fertile ground of the Black River Bottoms in Clay County in northeast Arkansas. The ancient oaks and sloughs, in all their years, had likely never witnessed a more epic bowhunting scene.

Twenty-eight feet high in a lock-on stand sat a lone bowhunter, as still as a stone, with nervous palms grasping his weapon. Seven yards beyond the perched hunter, a 28-point, drop-tined swamp monster with antlers as massive as a cluster of young cypress knots, swaggered in behind a group of does. Without warning, the buck stopped and snapped his glare directly into the hunter’s leaf-barren tree. With squinted eyes, Shane Frost, of Paragould, Arkansas, in a motionless reflex, prayed a silent prayer that the monarch wouldn’t bust him. Within seconds, fate would choose its path.

This wasn’t the first prayer Frost had prayed while this buck was within the strike zone. A previous encounter with the beast in December 2010 plagued him day and night. Without trail camera pictures or previous sightings of buck, the giant appeared like a river-bottom mirage on a chilly day the previous season. Awestruck and shocked by the buck’s appearance, Frost drew his bow when the deer got within 40 yards. The buck stepped into an opening, but remained at a quartering-to angle until he bolted into the timber to run off two subordinate bucks.

“I could have let an arrow fly,” Frost said, “but I just wasn’t going to take a marginal shot at a buck like this.”

Shane would not see the buck again until November 2011.

Much of the mystique of whitetail hunting is found in the connection between the hunter and the hunted, both noble in their own right. Compared to many other game species, whitetails have a relatively small home range; bucks are easily identifiable year after year and are, by nature, very habitual. This is what makes the game of trophy whitetail hunting what it is.

A buck that gets past you this year will likely be bigger next year, and he might be more patternable. A sighting or a trail camera picture of a buck on your hunting ground tempts you to think you’ll kill him with ease, but in the same thought you know a daylight encounter would be breathtakingly rare. This is whitetail hunting—our quarry is within reach, but is extremely difficult to lay your hands on.

Frost, a crop consultant by profession, has been bowhunting in the Black River country of Arkansas for more than 20 years and has taken numerous Pope and Young-class bucks. Outside the levees, the land is scalped by huge agricultural fields and dotted with small blocks of timber. Inside the levee of the large river, it’s all hardwood bottoms. Huge oaks and tupelo trees intermingle with cypress groves and sloughs to create a jungle of perfect whitetail habitat. Outside the levees, deer have abundant food, including soybeans and corn, much like in the Midwest.

Hunting the huge river bottoms is difficult because there aren’t many topographical features to funnel deer into predictable travel patterns. In mountainous or hilly country, terrain features make deer movement predictable. In flat land, deer travel is nearly impossible to predict.

In Arkansas, it is legal to hunt over bait, and in situations like this, it’s a extremely helpful if you want to be consistently successful. Hunting for a mature buck over supplemental feed is much more difficult than many people think. Deer quickly become extremely skittish, and mature bucks rarely visit these areas in the daytime.

Fall 2011
After the first encounter with the buck in December 2010, Frost hoped to get pictures of the buck—or see it—in the fall of 2011. A friend at camp had shot at and missed the buck during the 2010 Arkansas shotgun season after Christmas, but no one was for sure the buck hadn’t been hurt.

In the spring of 2011, Frost was pleased to hear that a neighboring landowner found a single shed antler from the buck.

“At least the buck was still alive,” Frost said, “but, after that, everybody knew about the buck.”

Word spread quickly that a giant non-typical was roaming the Black River bottoms and, according to Frost, “in the fall of 2011, the deer started to get pressured from all around the property.”

The summer and fall ranges of the buck spread through several different properties, and numerous hunters had pictures of the giant. The buck summered about one mile away from the 1,700-acre property that Frost hunts and hadn’t shown up on his hunting ground until early December the previous year.

Through the late summer and early fall, he checked his cameras often, hoping to get a clue about the monarch’s return, but nothing surfaced. Then, one day in early November during the Arkansas Youth Season, an amazing find surfaced at the camp. Eight-year-old Cooper Lutz and his father were walking through the timber towards their stand when Cooper spotted a huge, broken antler. Upon inspection, Frost and several others from camp thought it might be the big non-typical. However, no one had a single picture of the buck in the fall of 2011, so they didn’t know what his new rack looked like! They could only guess that it was his antler.

With the new find, Frost’s interest in the big buck had peaked. In late November, he saw the big buck from the stand for the second time ever. The buck was far out of bow range, but he was 100-percent convinced it was the big non-typical.

“The buck was getting pressured so hard in early 2011 that I think he had become extremely skittish and wouldn’t come near feeders or cameras,” Frost said. No body was getting pictures of the deer, but he must have been there all November. He had just gone totally under the radar.

With eager anticipation, Frost hoped the buck would show up on a camera. Every late-season hunter knows a buck’s pattern changes dramatically once the rut is over and he starts to focus on recovering from the stressful rut. Biologically, the buck would have to gravitate back towards a consistent feeding pattern, and Frost just hoped the buck would be stay on the property.

Thirty-one long days clicked by in December and the buck was still a no-show. Neither hide nor horn of the buck was seen as the days shortened and winter set in. It wouldn’t be until early January that the spectacular images of the broken-beamed non-typical illuminated Frost’s computer screen as he checked his cameras. As soon as he arrived, the hunt was on.

Frost monitored the camera where the buck was feeding and began to hunt the stand when the conditions were perfect. Many deer, including several 2 1/2- and 3 1/2-year-old bucks, were using the area in the daylight, but the giant non-typical never did. He only came in the night. Frost had a strong suspicion that the buck was bedding in a large, selective-cut timber harvest area a couple hundred yards away.

January in northern Arkansas typically brings some frigged temperatures that make the daytime appearance of mature bucks in feeding areas more likely. However, the winter of 2011-12 was one of the warmest on record, and the cold temperatures never came. The buck never showed before dark.

As the weeks crept into January, Frost began to worry the buck would drop his antlers. Arkansas has one of the longest bow seasons in the country, running from October 1 until February 28. Knowing that time was running out, in mid-January, Frost put a camera up closer to the selective-cut that he suspected the buck was bedding in. He thought by chance he might catch the buck feeding earlier in the evening, maybe even before dark.

Around January 20, the buck disappeared from the original spot Frost was hunting. Following his instinct, he had a strong suspicion that the buck was feeding in the area where he had placed the second camera. He hadn’t checked it in 10 days, but on January 25 the wind was perfect and he decided to hunt the stand for the first time.

“I got into the stand around 3 p.m. and about 30 minutes later, I saw two young bucks stand up in the brush, 75 yards away,” Frost recalled. As the bucks came to 40 yards, he noticed they were becoming very skittish, and he saw a group of does coming towards the stand. Trailing behind the does, coming up out of slough, was the huge non-typical! Frost’s gut feeling was right!

As quickly as the deer appeared, they were within bow range. Two of the does came directly under the stand and a couple others skirted out slightly from the stand. Standing, with his bow raised, Frost was poised and motionless hoping that one of several pairs of eyes wouldn’t pick him out in the tree. All the does passed without spotting him and Frost waited in anticipation to see which way the buck would go.

It appeared he was going to come right under the tree, when at the last minute he diverted and followed the path of the other does. The buck stepped into an opening broadside, at a mere seven yards! At this point, without warning, the buck looked directly up in the tree at Frost! All he could do was squint and pray. After what seemed like an eternity, miraculously, the buck dropped his gaze and continued on after the does. Frost knew it was risky, but he slowly drew his Mathews Z7 bow in the leaf-barren oak, placed his pins on the buck and released!

The 100-grain Shuttle T-Lock broadhead struck the giant high and slightly back. The beast bolted and Frost watched as the buck crossed a small slough. He knew the hit was lethal, but he was convinced it wasn’t the best shot. He was certain he hit liver and a least one lung. In most situations this wouldn’t be reason for concern, but in this swamp country blood trailing a deer can be difficult. After finding his arrow, he backed out until the next day.

Unfortunately, Frost’s daughter was scheduled to have sinus surgery early the next morning. Being the family man that he is, he and several friends didn’t make it back to the woods until 2 p.m. the next day.

“The dried blood was difficult to follow after he crossed the slough,” Frost recalled. The group trailed the buck into the night, searching with flashlights, but couldn’t find a strong blood trail on the other side of the water. Things then got worse when a strong rain blew in over night—literally a blood trailer’s worst nightmare. Frost knew the blood trail would be gone and their efforts would be spent walking and looking for the buck.

To make a long and stressful tracking story short, Frost and several friends spent the entire next day looking but didn’t find the buck. It wasn’t until the third day, on the way out of the area and within sight of the road, Frost and his good friend, Tommy Hancock, saw the buck belly up! The buck had swam a 60-yard-wide bar ditch and died within sight of the small farm road! With the cool temperatures, the buck was in perfect condition and was miraculously untouched by scavengers. Frost was ecstatic and relieved.

When they got the buck back to camp, the piece of horn that young Cooper had picked up fit seamlessly on the rack. After the 60-day drying period, Boone and Crockett scorer Todd Sharp scored the buck at a whopping official net score of 216 3/8 inches. Boone and Crockett regulations permitted the broken piece to be scored and counted, however, Pope and Young regulations do allow any broken pieces to count. The buck would have been the new Arkansas state-record non-typical bowkill in Pope and Young, beating the current record of 215 4/8 inches. However, the buck can’t be entered into Pope and Young at the full score.

Regardless, the buck’s Boone and Crockett score is phenomenal, and in reality, this is the largest non-typical buck ever taken with a bow in Arkansas. The keys to this hunt were persistence, smart hunting and not pressuring the buck too much. Combine this with a last minute “home-run swing” to switch stands and get closer to the buck’s bedding area and you have an extraordinary hunt. That being said, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving, persistent and hard-hunting Natural State bowhunter.

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North American Whitetail

Paul Keller Buck: The 231-Inch Wisconsin Wonder

Aaron Milliken

Bill Winke

Bo Cocannouer

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Carter Rice

Dale Gertz

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Joshua Earp

Lindsay Groom

Matt Ford

Michael Morgan

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

What Every Hunter Needs to Know About Venison Nutrition

1. Choose the Right Cut

2. Say No to Silverskin

3. Making the Cut

4. Build Your Brine

5. Salt to Taste

6. Soak On That

7. Dry Your Jerky

8. Take, Eat and Enjoy

How to Make Venison Jerky

Father’s Day Gifts for Whitetail Addicts

Bushnell Trophy Cam HD Max

Cabela's Air Revolution Boot

Cabela's Regulator Bow

CodeBlue EliminX Scent Control System

LaCrosse AeroHead

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ScentBlocker

ScentBlocker Trinity

ThermaCELL

Victorinox SwissTool Spirit

Father's Day Gifts for Whitetail Addicts

Lucas Cochren Buck: 238-Inch Non-Typical Giant

Aaron Milliken

Bill Winke

Bo Cocannouer

Brian Herron

Carter Rice

Dale Gertz

Dorothy Shaffer

Dylan Beach-Bittner

Jeff Danker

Jeff Iverson

Jordan Dressler

Josh Barnard

Joshua Earp

Lindsay Groom

Matt Ford

Michael Morgan

Mike Giarraputo

Mike Moran

Paul Keller

Payton Mireles

Pete Alfano

Randy Walk

Richard Buker

Robert Gramoll

Stanley Suda

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NAW's Best Bucks of 2012

Ryan Dietsch Buck: 219-Inch Ohio Bruiser