A friend in North Carolina bowhunts Kansas every year for the price of his non-resident license and the gasoline required for the long drive. He’s a contractor; owns his own construction business.

He gained access to prime land by bartering his carpentry skills for keys to gates.

Paul Hein, a high school football coach in Blue Grass, Iowa, took a page from that same playbook.

Two decades have passed since Paul, who also teaches welding, befriended a farmer willing to trade fall mornings for much needed welding and machinery repairs. The big payoff came last season.

When his coaching responsibilities ended last fall, Paul was in the woods every evening after school. On Nov. 16, he was 18 feet up and in the crotch of an oak tree by 3:20 p.m.

He started off by grunting and rattling. He’d selected a stand 30 yards south of an unpicked cornfield and about 70 to 100 yards from some bedding areas.

At 5 p.m., Paul heard something to his right and saw a small buck heading his way. It was acting spooky and kept looking back over its shoulder. Figuring another deer was behind it, Paul stood. A minute or two later, a monstrous buck appeared, looking for a fight.

The thick-necked whitetail was easily pushing 300 pounds, and the rack looked like it had an extra beam.

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Travis Cockburn winced whenever he heard a gunshot during last November’s firearms season in Illinois. But it wasn’t because slugs were whizzing past his head or splintering nearby trees.

With every bang, he just knew somebody had shot the cartoonishly big buck his son, Caden, had nicknamed Ginormica after seeing summertime trail cam photographs of the beast in velvet. Seems everyone in Johnston City knew about the deer.

The bodacious and nocturnal buck was thrice photographed on the Cockburns’ 80 acres, the last time on Sept. 1. At least one neighboring landowner got 30 photos.

After not seeing the buck in the flesh or on a camera during the first six weeks of bow season, Travis’ hopes were tainted with fear that someone would shoot the giant deer when the gun season opened. But no news was good news.

When Travis took his bow afield on Nov. 27, a Sunday afternoon, he never expected to see the brute.

“I saw only a bobcat until around 4:15,” he said. “And then I spotted something off to the side and turned to see this freak slipping down the creek, knee deep in water. In the span of 15 seconds, he was broadside to me at 18 yards.”

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Wind direction and limited time dictated where Wisconsin's Rory Leszczynski hunted after work on Nov. 2, 2011. Though he had access to private lands, he opted for public ground, which would give him an extra 30 or 45 minutes in a tree.

Rory had heard rumors of one or two giants roaming the Marathon County tract, but he'd seen only one decent buck during previous hunts. He'd also found a nice 5-point shed there in the spring.

The weather that day was breezy and rainy. The wind was out of the east and was supposed to do a 180. And, for once, the forecast was on target.

"Before I climbed a large double oak 40 yards off a cornfield, I sprayed some doe-in-estrus and dominant buck scents on a wick and placed it over a scrape," he said. "I also sprayed some nearby trees."

Aloft at 3:30, he ranged a few trees and the distance to the cornfield. A half-hour later, he rattled and grunted, a routine he likes to employ every 20 minutes.

"At 5:25, the rain finally stopped and the wind died. I rattled, scanned the area, and then hung up the antlers. When I scanned again, I saw a deer about 150 yards distant," he said. "I could see a rack before I even grabbed the binoculars."

It had to be a 170-incher, he thought.

When Rory grunted a couple of times, the buck started walking toward him.

While trying to get into a shooting position with his bow, Rory inadvertently brushed one of the double trunks with his nocked arrow, which fell 20 feet to the ground after a loud ding. His next-to-last nerve fell with it.

He scrambled to nock another arrow. Checked three times to see if the nock would hold. Prayed the buck didn't hear the first one plummeting.

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Crestfallen, Mike Kemble looked at his grunt tube as if it were a turd.

He hadn't been in his treestand for very long on Nov. 3, 2011, when the 130-inch buck at the top of his wish list appeared 60 yards down the creek that wound through his favorite patch of woods. To coax it closer, the hunter from Newton Falls, Ohio, pulled out his tube and grunted softly.

He might as well have shouted, "Run away, fool!"

Blue flames shot out from under its high white tail as the deer rocketed out of sight.

"I wondered what the heck caused it to do that," Mike said. "My grunting isn't THAT bad!"

A few minutes later, an absolutely HUGE 4x4 was broadside at a mere 15 yards, which is when Mike's crossbow bolt sliced through its shoulder. Leaking like crazy, the animal collapsed at the end of a 60-yard dash.

"Later that evening, several of my friends convinced me that we should measure the rack," Mike said. "The numbers we got were unreal. If we were right, based on what I found on the Internet, the deer was one of the largest 8-pointers ever harvested. Maybe THE largest!"

Waiting for Boone and Crockett's 60-day drying period was torture, and widespread speculation that the buck might be a world-record 8-pointer didn't make it any easier. It had not occurred to Mike that Buckmasters has no drying period.

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