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Larry Reece Buck
By Mike Handley
Larry Reece was desperate. With shooting light quickly fading and a "decent" buck almost within range (at least it was before it disappeared into a pine plantation), he glanced at the grunt tube in his hand. The 57-year-old deer hunter from Benton, Miss., considered the little gadget long on hype and short on magic. He'd never had a deer respond to... READ MORE
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
Nick Fauber Buck
By Rob Meade
For most of Nick Fauber’s life, spending time outdoors meant puttering around a golf course. That was before his cousin, Chris, convinced him to give hunting a try. The first time the Hillsboro, Ohio, golfer traded his clubs for a shotgun, back in 2007, he shot a doe. Chris and Rob Shipley, Nick’s brother-in-law, took him under their wi... READ MORE
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
Kevin Fitch Buck
By Ed Waite
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 hunter from Norwalk, Ohio, with Rodney Dangerfield eyes and a mouth full of... READ MORE
Robert Shadow Buck
By Duncan Dobie
"Robert Shadow's '09 Kansas bow tag almost wound up in a drawer rather than on a buck's antlers. He and his son, Alan, had drawn the permits and were looking forward to hunting the "Promised Land," but then along came a double dose of tragedy. Robert's 89-year-old mother passed away in early October. Later that same month, a tornado toppled a large... READ MORE
Jason Woodbury Buck
By Jill J. Easton
Passing up a 9-pointer and ignoring a button buck last year enabled Jason Woodbury of Kouts, Ind., to put his tag on a buck few hunters could even imagine. Being a nice guy helped, too, because he’d never have been on that property had he not offered to take his little boy’s friend hunting.
Jason’s dream season started when his 9... READ MORE
Troy Henderson Buck
By Troy Henderson
I’d intended to spend opening day of Kansas’ 2009 firearms season babysitting the south end of a heavily wooded draw where I’d been seeing a very nice, tall and wide 14-pointer. The buck with the striking white rack usually left the area in the early morning and returned an hour or so before sunset. The temperature plummeted the n... READ MORE