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Venison with a Side of Crow
By Mike Handley
When Danny Culpepper sent his son, Fletcher, a text message on Oct. 22, 2012, asking if he could carry some material in to camouflage his ladder stand, he had no idea Fletcher was sitting in the stand and had just shot a deer from it. He knew only that his 27-year-old son was hunting the 55 acres, which is why he thought to ask before driving back ... READ MORE
Making the Grade
By Rusty Johnson
The taxidermy tag on this set of antlers read “MINE.” Try telling Ryan Odenbrett that life is fair. He wanted to go bowhunting on the cool gray afternoon of Oct. 20. He knew exactly which stand to visit, too. But the conflicted sophomore at Southern Missouri really needed every available hour to study for a biology test. Or did he? His ... READ MORE
Blessing in Disguise
By Rob Meade
Misjudging distance might’ve cost this Ohio man a 10-pointer, but the consolation prize wore a drop tine. Eager to learn more about the property he’d bought in December 2009, Tony Amyx spent a lot of time scouting it the following spring and summer. He also collected numerous trail camera photographs of the deer there, including a fabul... READ MORE
Rabbits, Ribbing and Other People’s Bucks
By Ed Waite
When Eric Williams and his wife, Angela, grew weary of living in a cramped suburb near Cincinnati, Ohio, they began searching for a place where Eric and their three sons could play outdoors. In May 2010, they bought a house on 17 acres in Warren County. You’d think Eric would’ve spent every spare moment in a deer stand the next fall, bu... READ MORE
Life’s Good in Dellwood
By Mike Handley
Top of Florida’s Semi-Irregular list. Brandon Alday’s 4-year-old son, Hayes, nearly choked him when the yelling commenced. The boy was getting a free ride on his father’s shoulders when Brandon’s flashlight beam fell across the buck he was convinced he’d either missed or maimed. “I started screaming like a little... READ MORE
Why Leonard was Late for Church
By Ed Waite
Hunters on both sides of the Red River were gunning for this driftwood-wearing buck. This story is not about Leonard Ernst, but it might explain why he almost skipped Sunday morning services last Nov. 7. It most definitely accounts for the bare pew in Andy Anderson’s church. Andy didn’t intend to play hooky that day, but he had his hand... READ MORE
Down to the Wire
By Mike Handley
Two bullets, two years and two MONSTROUS bucks! Folks who fill their single buck tags on opening day might not complain, but, if they’re honest about it, they’d rather be in a stand than spend the remainder of deer season moping around the house or hunting vicariously with whispering television hunters. Tracy Atchison doesn’t have... READ MORE
Bullion Buck
By Mike Handley
Fort Knox Holds More Than Just Guns and Gold! Justin Corn hunts like there’s no tomorrow. The 24-year-old knows all about uncertainties. He joined the army after graduating high school in Clanton, Ala. He was in Iraq from 2007 through 2009, and he spent five months in Afghanistan last year before winding up at Fort Knox near Elizabethto... READ MORE
Unencumbered by Experience
By Mike Handley
A little girl’s intuition puts her on the other side of the crosshairs from her first buck. Brandon Hazel of Anthony, Kansas, knows when to say yes and close his mouth. While most dads would’ve listened to the voices in their own heads rather than the words of their 8-year-old kid, he allowed his daughter Joscelyn to choose where they s... READ MORE
Irony Tastes Like Venison
By Mike Handley
Just when any old buck (or doe) would’ve sufficed, along comes a deer with a headdress of tines ... Because of a foreboding weather forecast, heightened by bad luck at the onset of his planned weeklong hunt, Gary Fears headed afield on Nov. 24 with the resignation of shooting the first decent buck dumb enough to wander into his crosshairs. No... READ MORE
Clicking Heels
By Greg Hicks
Forget Yellow Bricks. The Road Out of Oz is Paved With Palmettos and Often Under Water. There’s no place like home.” Dorothy said it in “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939. Louisiana’s Ricky Caldwell spoke those same words on the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge in 2012. Ricky was born and raised not far from what would ev... READ MORE
Mirage and Mayhem
By Ed Waite
Lorain County rood-wad buck is No. 16 in a class filled with 200-inchers! It was as if the ground opened up and swallowed Kevin Fitch’s buck. One minute, it was on the receiving end of a shotgun slug (he hoped). The next, it was gone. Not fall-down-dead gone. Not running-with-the-wind-and-leaving-a-blood-trail gone. Just gone, leaving the hun... READ MORE
Shifting Priorities
By Jill J. Easton
Iowa hunter glad he hesitated to collect freezer meat. Deer hunting has always been more of a social affair for Randy Cantonwine and his landowner pals, who relish the camaraderie of hunting as a group. They hunt as a team, together but separately. Walkers slip through the timber to push the deer, while standers wait at strategic locations to inter... READ MORE
Peepless in Kansas
By Trevor Lumadue
The perfect hit doesn’t always leave the perfect trail. I returned from Iraq to Fort Riley, Kan., two years ago, just in time to buy a deer tag and jump into the second week of the 2009 archery season. I didn’t want to bumble into other guys’ well established honey holes, but I had no idea where to start. This meant I would be str... READ MORE
Daddy Sang Tenor
By Mike Handley
This Kentucky Hunter Discovers His Own So-You-Can-Rest Medicine. Michael Rothman knows cold. So convinced that, no matter how early his arrival, he was spooking deer out of a cornfield en route to his shooting house, the deer hunter from Bonnieville, Ky., decided to just spend the night in the box blind. It wasn’t as if there were a Scotty, a... READ MORE