
Big Buck 411

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
But When the School Bell Rings
Danny Scott struck a deal with his grandson, Ben Turner, when they retrieved trail camera photographs of an enormous buck with an unusual buck. First, they...

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
Public Land Giant in Illinois
One of the finest whitetails Illinois taxidermist Matt Cheek will mount this year will be the one he almost didn’t shoot on Nov. 1.
If the archery permits...

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
Cartridge Crisis is About to Get Real
For a week and a half in August 2024, Grainger Pollert swallowed more saliva than he could’ve spit during a lifetime of sitting in a dentist’s chair.

BY: PATRICK DUNNING
168" Hoosier on Public Land
Bow hunting, like baseball, is a game of failure. Major-league hitters with .300 batting averages fail 70% of their at-bats and still enjoy careers worthy of...

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
Record Buck from Public Land
Joseph Holloman of Quitman, Miss., and his buddy, Brian Jordan, were sharing a 38,000-acre tract of public land with about 400 other hunters during a special...

BY: MARK MELOTIK
First Bow Buck Joins Club 200
When the first whitetail bow buck of your life measures over 200 inches, where do you go from there? Not a question most of us will wrestle with, but it’s the...

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
The Banshee and the Buck
How long does it take for the woods to settle after a banshee-doe alerts the entire state to the presence of a suspicious lump in a tree?
About 30 minutes,...

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
Tagged Out in Two Hours
The day before Kentucky's 2015 rifle season opened, Alvin Hoover made himself a ground blind by stacking hay bales inside the tree line next to a field...

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
In Praise of Buckspeak
Joe Blanton would almost rather discover he'd left his bullets at home than find out he'd gone afield without his trusty grunt call. He uses the contraption...

BY: MIKE HANDLEY
Friends are Sometimes Better than Trail Cams
A phone call from a friend, an unplanned detour and a stomachache combined in 2013 to force a Richland, Indiana, deer hunter into paying for taxidermy.
Dean...
