Big Buck Tales

Brad Heuvelmann Buck

Brad Heuvelmann Buck

By Brad Heuvelmann

While hunting after a heavy snowfall about 10 years ago, I ran into an older gentleman dragging out a once-in-a-lifetime whitetail. He had taken the buck early that morning and had been struggling to get the huge deer to his truck. It was about lunchtime, and he was only halfway to his vehicle. I was happy to give him a hand, just for the opportuni... READ MORE

Green Campbell Buck

Green Campbell Buck

By Mike Handley

If 14-year-old Green Campbell had been given a choice on Oct. 20, 2007, he would’ve gladly given up his ringside seat to one of the most dramatic college football games of the year. When he retrieved the 200 images from his first-ever trail camera that Saturday morning, which was exciting enough, he came across three shots of an unbelievable... READ MORE

Dave Ross Buck

Dave Ross Buck

By Brady Smith

Soon after he'd gained permission to hunt a vast piece of ground in Greene County, Ohio, Dave Ross set out to do some preseason scouting. The area was full of promising deer sign, so he wasted no time in setting up an automatic game feeder about 20 yards from the edge of a soybean field. He also erected a ladder stand a few yards away from it. The... READ MORE

Michael Rothman Buck

Michael Rothman Buck

By Mike Handley

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 Samantha or a Jeannie who could beam, nose-wrinkle or head-bob h... READ MORE

Ricky Caldwell Buck

Ricky Caldwell Buck

By Greg Hicks

“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 eventually become one of the best public hunting tracts in North America. Under his... READ MORE

Pat Bates Buck

Pat Bates Buck

By Mike Handley

Pheromones and estrous doe scents might be akin to Cupid’s arrow, but whatever Pat Bates pours on bushes is more like Thor’s hammer. One whiff of the concoction will turn bucks into white-eyed defoliators, or, if they’re big and stupid enough to do battle with flora in front of Pat, into wall art. The retired firefighter from Al... READ MORE

Mike Beatty Buck

Mike Beatty Buck

By Dan Armitage

Fumbling nervously in the darkness for one of his distinctive white-fletched arrows, Mike Beatty had made one of the toughest decisions of his life: to temporarily abandon the search for the monstrous whitetail he'd shot at dusk. Still not convinced that he'd chosen correctly, the Ohio bowhunter nocked the projectile on the barbed wire fence to mar... READ MORE

Audrey Sharp Buck

Audrey Sharp Buck

By Audrey Sharp

I didn’t sleep well on the Friday night before Indiana’s 2011 firearms opener. My husband, Jerry, had agreed to stay home with our daughters so I could go hunting with my dad, Tim Ostrander, and I was excited. I awoke at 4:30 a.m., got ready and was at my parents’ home an hour later. Dad asked me if I wanted to skip hunting and j... READ MORE

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Copyright 2020 by Buckmasters, Ltd