Because of a foreboding weather forecast, heightened by bad luck at the onset of his planned weeklong hunt in Woods County, Okla., Gary Fears headed afield on Nov. 24 with the resignation of shooting the first decent buck dumb enough to wander into his crosshairs.

Not even a doe was safe.

"I just wanted to kill a buck, any decent one, and go home," he admitted.

When he went out that day, he fashioned himself a ground blind from a couple of hillside cedars overlooking a canyon. Soon afterward, while thinking about hoofing 500 yards to possibly get a shot at one of the two great bucks he saw chasing does in the distance, a handsome 10-pointer began dogging one much closer.

When the buck tired of the chase, the doe came on out into the open and began browsing, leaving her boyfriend standing guard within the scrub. While Gary watched, trigger finger itchy, the 5x5 suddenly whirled and took off in the opposite direction.

"I couldn't figure out why it ran," he said. "There was no way it could see or smell me, and the doe hadn't spooked."

So accustomed to misfortune that week, Gary decided to take the proverbial bird in hand. He eased his .270 WSM to his shoulder and put the crosshairs on the feeding doe. Before squeezing the trigger, however, he glimpsed more deer legs above his scope and raised his head to check out the newcomer, a much bigger buck than the AWOL 10-pointer he'd fancied shooting.

"It all happened so quickly, I didn't have time to get nervous. I'd already used that up on the 10-pointer," Gary said. "Plus, I saw only the right side of the deer's rack. I really didn't have a clue that it was so big."

As soon as the buck stepped into the clear at 220 yards, Gary's rifle spat a 150-grain ballistic tip at it.

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Prior to last November, Chris Denniston had little use for and practically no confidence in pop-up blinds. Satisfied with climbing stands, the 33-year-old construction shop foreman would’ve never bought one of the tent-like contraptions for himself.

But what was he supposed to do when his mother gave him one for Christmas? Feed it to the moths? Sell it in a yard sale?

He might’ve given it to his brother, whose busted hip kept him out of trees, but their mom bought him one, too.

When Chris went deer hunting on opening morning of Kentucky’s 2010 rifle season, he took his climber. Before leaving his Papaw’s farm, he set up his Christmas present just in case one of his kids or his wife accompanied him on a return trip.

The next morning, although he was alone again, he decided to christen the blind. Before that day, he’d never sat inside one.
 

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Calling J.T. Kreager lucky within earshot of anyone who knows him would be like waking to discover you’ve inadvertently Tweeted photographs of your underwear to Oprah. You’re going to be left red-faced.

Yes, the Ohio bowhunter was in the right place at the right time to put an arrow through a world-class whitetail last season. The hunt was short and sweet, ending his season just two days out of the chute -- the first of which was spent beside his 11-year-old daughter as she drilled a deer for the second time in her life.

But the guy didn’t spin a bottle or roll a dice. He didn’t walk to the nearest stand in street clothes with a banged-up bow after frying bacon or pumping gas. The deer’s face wasn’t in a bucket of apples, and there was nobody driving deer toward him.

J.T. knew which of many stands on many farms offered the best chance at a giant during the unseasonable (and much hoped for) northeasterly wind. It happened to be one he’d hung at his most recent acquisition, which had yielded many trail cam photographs of the wide-racked buck he most wanted.

Co-owner of a small manufacturing company in Delaware, Ohio, and the man behind three hunting-oriented websites, J.T. has plenty of time to pursue whitetails in the fall, and he’s almost fanatical about it. His obsession with scent control -- wind, showers, sprays and Scent Lok -- borders on OCD, and he amasses hunting rights by knocking on more doors than a candidate for city council.

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I first mentioned Kevin Petrzilka’s 2010 buck in my blog three days after it hit the dirt in Saunders County, Neb. E-mails containing photographs of it were filling more inboxes than pleas from former Nigerian first ladies needing help to move large sums of money across the Atlantic.

Based on an unofficial net score of more than 203 inches, speculation was that the whitetail would be a new state-record Typical by the B&C yardstick.

I can’t speak for B&C, but I can say it’s a state record with us. The former No. 1, taken back in 1999, was 26 inches smaller.

This rascal’s official BTR score, which doesn’t include the 21 1/8-inch inside spread, is an eye-popping 206 5/8. That makes it No. 1 for Nebraska, No. 6 in the world, and one of only 13 typical-racked whitetails in our record book that surpass the 200-inch mark. Its composite score (actual true gross) is an unbelievable 227 6/8 inches!

Another interesting and unusual factoid about the Petrzilka Buck: Its official BTR score is higher than its B&C net score, which suffered nearly 25 inches of deductions because of side-to-side differences and three non-typical points.

Here’s the short version of the hunt...

Kevin wasn’t the first member of his family to sling lead at the incredible 17-pointer on Nov. 19, a week into Nebraska’s nine-day rifle season. His son, Mason, missed what should’ve been a 250-yard chip shot for a flat-shooting .22-250.

When the teenager’s rifle jammed and prevented a followup, he noted where the deer disappeared and called for reinforcements. His dad and older brother, Dillon, postponed the rounding up of a bull that had walked through or over a downed electric fence to join in an impromptu man-drive.

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