Kenny hunted this giant 10-pointer with a bow for three seasons. At one point in 2005, Keeny came up to full draw on the buck at 30 yeards, but he could not get a clear shot. Then, a year later in 2006. Kenny downed the monster with his muzzleloader.

The big 10-pointer that Kenny Pickard had been pursuing for the past three years finally appeared in an open bean field on the second day of Ohio's gun season last year. The unwanted company of two smaller bucks, which were also vying for the doe's affection, had the old buck preoccupied with defending his claim on the lady. Kenny was perched in a stand overlooking the creek valley that morning, and the ruckus got his attention.

Kenny had first seen the enormous buck at a considerable distance across a picked and weathered cornfield in central Clinton County in southwest Ohio in late May of 2004. Kenny, a farmer and avid deer hunter since his youth, was plowing and preparing the ground for spring planting. He instantly noticed the size of the buck's rack from his elevated seat inside the cab of the tractor he was driving.

"He was in velvet with three other bucks," recalled Kenny. "He was an 8-pointer then, still growing his rack, and was the biggest of the three. I'm certain it was him, because of the way his rack was shaped."

Kenny had a trail camera set out that spring, and he was lucky enough to get photographs of the buck in velvet. Kenny never laid eyes on the deer again until the following October during bow season.

"I saw him one time in early bow season near the area where I had first seen him in spring," Kenny said. "That was the last time I saw him in 2004. I thought maybe he might have gotten killed. He was a real nice buck then, probably a 140-class 8-pointer."

The next time Kenny saw the buck was on a September morning in 2005 while checking trail cameras just prior to the Ohio archery opener.

"I observed him from a distance walking the creek line," said Kenny. "I was watching him with binoculars, trying to figure out where he was going. He was a big 10-pointer then."

Kenny caught a brief glimpse of the buck in October. Then, in November, the big 10 drew the attention of a deer-hunting neighbor who saw the buck in the same creek valley the day before the youth gun season was slated to open. The neighbor called Kenny and excitedly told him about the sighting. The large wooded creek bottom where the buck was regularly seen is a mixture of hollows, brushy pockets, weedy hillsides, and corn or bean fields along the upper edges, making it an ideal deer and wildlife corridor.

"My neighbor said he saw a big deer and thought it was headed my way," said Kenny. "So I went out the next morning, the opening day of youth gun season, with my bow. I heard shooting down the creek line. Then a buck and a doe came into the top side of the woods. I was on the bottom side, and he was following the doe. I was hunting off the ground because it was too thick to hunt from a stand, and I was leaning up against a tree when the doe walked within eight yards of me."

Kenny first saw the buck about 30 yards away coming out of a thicket and trailing the doe toward him. "I was at full draw twice for as long as I could hold it."

Even though the big 10-pointer had gotten within 12 yards of Kenny, there was multiflora rose bush between Kenny and the buck. "I kept thinking he would step out. I had a small pocket I thought about trying to shoot through, but I just didn't. Then the doe walked back the same way she had come from, and he followed her, walking straight away from me."

Kenny never saw the deer again the rest of the season, but his neighbor observed the 10-pointer one more time trailing a doe across a field just before Ohio's gun season opened.

The next confirmation that the buck was still around came from a trail camera photo taken in February 2006. The buck had shed his right antler but still carried his left side. "We looked and looked for both of his shed antlers after that, but we never could find either one," Kenny said.

During that summer of 2006, several photos were taken with trail cameras showing the buck in velvet. "I wasn't sure that was him until I got nine more pictures in September," Kenny said. "By now he was a huge 10-pointer, and after seeing those photos I decided to seriously start bowhunting just for him."

Kenny knew the woods and brushy thickets the buck lived in well, having farmed and hunted the land since he was a boy growing up on the farm. He knew the two primary bedding areas the buck was using, and he was familiar with travel routes and feeding areas. More importantly, he knew the subtleties of the land and the habits of the deer that lived on that land as only one who had hunted the area for many years could know.

"I knew where the deer were going and I stayed out of their bedding areas," Kenny said. "I tried to keep my scent down and I only hunted when the wind was right. I hunted from both the ground and tree stands. I passed up a lot of pretty good deer waiting on this one buck."

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