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Rack Magazine
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What a Difference 668 Days Make!
By Ed Waite
It’s probably a good thing Troy Johnson’s luck wasn’t so good in 2008. Ditto for 2009. While the Ohio bowhunter would’ve been very happy to stick a 165-inch whitetail in 2008, or the same deer — only 25 inches bigger — in 2009, doing so would’ve robbed him of being one of 2010’s inductees into the BTR... READ MORE
Lights, Action … BOW
By Mike Handley
One minute, 37 seconds, from the magnificent buck’s surefooted arrival to its hasty and wobbly departure. That’s how much video footage a pair of teenagers recorded of the biggest whitetail to come out of Knox County, Ohio, in seven years. Brothers a year apart, one filmed while the other shot it with his bow. The excellent clip, which ... READ MORE
Ethan’s Teepee
By Lisa Price
Doug Dorff of Carlyle, Ill., passed up an iffy shot at this buck in 2009. When the stars aligned two seasons later, there was nothing but 70 yards of air between hunter and hunted. Aw, not again. What, is this our fourth child?” asked Joni Dorff, as her husband, Doug, tenderly buckled the buck rack into a passenger seat in the family minivan.... READ MORE
He Chot Him
By Ed Waite
Remembering to cock the hammer is as important as keeping your powder dry! Rob Thies must’ve sounded like Troy Landry from “Swamp People,” only without the South Louisiana accent.Instead of wrestling an angry alligator on a line, Rob and his 9-year-old son, Trey, were deer hunting in Indiana, and they were staring at huge buck jus... READ MORE
Carpe Deerum
By Ed Waite
Have Weather, Will Hunt... Given the choice between going to a classroom and taking a final exam or spending opening morning of the firearms season in a treestand, is there any doubt which a deer hunter will do? For Andrew Cooper of Hillsborough, Ohio, the decision wasn’t exactly a no-brainer. Until the moment he went to bed on Nov. 28, he wa... READ MORE
The Year Seth Didn’t Quit
By Seth Bisbee
My dad set out a trail camera in 2010, and we got a few photographs of a young, but impressive 5x5. I wasn’t really salivating over the deer, but there was no way I was going to pass it up if I ever got the chance with my bow. My uncle made a ground blind and concealed it next to a slough. He got a chance at the 10-pointer, but missed. That w... READ MORE
You Know What They Say About Cats...
By Ed Waite
Curiosity might well have been this whitetail’s undoing. Alek Muladore might be the only deer hunter to have gasped and huffed his way into the record books. So shaken by the buck beyond his .410 shotgun’s bead last fall, the 8-year-old’s breathing was more like that of a woman in labor. It was even loud enough for the giant white... READ MORE
New York’s Scrape Doctor
By Mike Canale
I’ll never forget the sun glistening off the largest rack of the four bucks that were challenging each other in the meadow west of my treestand. That was during the waning 2010 archery season. It was close to 11 a.m., and I’d just come down from my treestand within in a copse of pines when I saw them. To prevent being seen by the randy ... READ MORE
Who’s Your MOMMY?
By Mike Handley
We’ve come a long way, baby. Or have we? The Cabela’s parking lot was full of men looking for a back to slap. They’d gathered around a pickup truck to gawk at a buck wearing nearly 200 inches of antler, and after wiping the drool from their chins, they cast about for the one man who looked most like a cat with a mouthful of canary... READ MORE
Pronghorn Double Play
By Mike Lambeth
Might seem easy, but world-class antelope are needles in very big haystacks. The magnificent slanted-horn pronghorn stared intently at me from 70 yards. His ominous glare let me know I was an unwelcomed guest in his environ. My heart raced as I tried to steady my crosshairs on his tan-and-white frame, now facing directly toward me — just like... READ MORE
Surcharge Louisiana Style
By Greg Hicks
When L.E. Bower’s granddaughter, Brandi, chose to go shopping rather than hunting on Dec. 27, 2009, she had no idea the decision would cost her an extra buck. While Brandi was busy finding ways to spend money that was burning a hole in her pocket that Sunday, her grandfather decided to do a little scouting, which, in Louisiana, means restokin... READ MORE
No Pressure for Her
By Gita M. Smith
Trevor Wallace couldn’t look. Meanwhile, crouched next to him, his 7-year-old daughter, Morgan, was all eyes. Her grandfather’s Remington .22-250 was pressed to her cheek, and she was struggling to focus through its scope. A moment earlier, a buck with a massive rack had crested the hill with the rising sun behind it. The size of its an... READ MORE
Spitting Distance
By Ed Waite
Sometimes nothing-to-lose antics work like a charm. Michael Miller knew rain was on the way, but he was eager to visit the unpicked cornfield — providing his brother, the foreman for McGill Landscaping in Omaha, called an early enough end to the work day. It was Oct. 21, and the 19-year-old was keenly aware that his favorite bowhunting spot w... READ MORE
Googlebuck.com
By Mike Handley
One of New York’s all time best. Twenty-six days into New York’s 2009 bow season, Long Island attorney Bjorn Holubar found himself working at home with his favorite paralegal, a curvaceous, eager-to-please redhead named Ginger. Bjorn and Ginger spend a lot of time together, perhaps too much, but she had nothing to do with the 42-year-ol... READ MORE
Battling “Buckachers”
By Daniel Crane
I was 14 years old when I finally learned why my family was gaga over deer hunting. I didn’t shoot one that year, but I did tag a 10-pointer with my 12-gauge Remington during my second season. Despite my early success and countless trips, I waited a long time to put my crosshairs on a real wallhanger. Early during Indiana’s 2009 season,... READ MORE
Same Stand, Same Day
By Ed Waite
Dad’s Best & Son’s First. Ohio’s 2009 gun season was rapidly winding down; it was Saturday with only Sunday remaining. The season had been pretty much a bust for Leonard Bakker and his son, Travis. Leonard had set up a two-person treestand on 65 acres of private land in Clinton County in southwestern Ohio. “I had taken o... READ MORE
The Mother Lode
By Mike Handley
John Bruno found the mother lode on a Missouri coal mine’s property last November, but what he took home in his truck was fit more for stoking a taxidermist’s wallet than a furnace. Because John’s father is president of the coal-fired power plant’s union, he’s among the few who have permission to hunt some of the facil... READ MORE
Happy Dancer
By Audrey Sharp
Winner of the 2012 Golden Laurel Citation 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 a... READ MORE
Elude Me Twice...
By Jill J. Easton
This Okie buck had a death wish! When Brent Smith drove up to the wheat field south of Ringling, Okla., where he normally hunts, a pickup was circling the area. He waited a few minutes, but the truck didn’t go away. Disgusted, he moved to another spot near Mud Creek. By the time he got there, the sun was already climbing above the eastern hor... READ MORE
Wake-up Call
By Ed Waite
It’s okay to sleep in a deer blind, just as long as you have an alarm clock who answers to “Dad.” Macc McClain’s eyelids have never been as heavy as they were on Nov. 21, when he and his father, Norm, shared a makeshift blind on Aunt Marion’s Logan County farm. The 10th-grader found it difficult to keep his eyes open, ... READ MORE