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Rack Magazine
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The “$61,000” Buck
By Ed Waite
Photo: Twelve-year-old Seth Williams poses with the first of two bucks he shot last year in Wisconsin. He was with his dad, Mark, inside a turkey blind, when the tall-tined whitetail showed its gray face. One of the most e-mailed photographs to arrive in deer hunters’ inboxes last year was of a boy straddling an enormous whitetail in the back... READ MORE
If You Can Lead a Buck to Eat...
By Ed Waite
And to think the 5x5 was a shooter FIVE RACKS EARLIER! Ron Macak of Milwaukee bought two parcels of land in Iron County, Wis., in the mid-1990s. One was 13 acres, where a cabin stood; the other was 40 acres of hardwoods and a cedar swamp. Finding a pair of 5-point sheds behind his cabin in 2005 was enough to convince him to concentrate on the small... READ MORE
Tracks in the Mud
By David O’Farrell
With a noggin scoring 23 5⁄16 inches, Bruce Brown’s old boar was the largest grizzly taken in the Yukon in 2010. The tracks in the mud were dimpled by the rain of a couple of days earlier, meaning we were at least three days too late. We found them off the main river, on a gravel bar almost six miles up Lowel Creek, which drai... READ MORE
Two Years in the Taking
By Travis Hogan
Bladed Norton County buck shatters 12-year-old Kansas record.
The taste of tag soup might be foreign to Wes Eagleburger, but notching his 2009 Kansas tag wasn’t nearly as appetizing as he’d hoped.
Wes always gets a deer. And more often than not, he winds up with a great buck, which doesn’t go unnoticed by his friends. They like ... READ MORE
Grin and Deer It
By Mike Handley
It was the worst and best of days... Ryan Bearden was disgusted and ready to go someplace else, anyplace else, maybe even back to his warm motel room. Though 2010 was the Alabamian’s third year to make the almost 500-mile drive to Ohio, he’d hunted this Highland County farm only once before that cold Dec. 18. All he really knew about th... READ MORE
West of the Wabash
By Jill J. Easton
An automobile dealership isn’t the kind of place usually associated with hunting. But a friendship between Derrick Bulkley, co-owner of Expressway Auto Mall in Mount Vernon, Ind., and Justin Jones, a technician who worked there, gave Derrick the opportunity to shoot an outstanding Illinois buck with his muzzleloader in 2009.
While both worke... READ MORE
Spot & 92-Day Stalk
By Scott Esker
While driving home from work on June 28, 2010, I passed three deer far out in a soybean field. Although I couldn’t see antlers from that distance, one of the animals seemed much bigger than the others.
Curious, I turned around, stopped and peered at them through a spotting scope. The largest was a really good buck. Although it was still earl... READ MORE
My Son the Defibrillator
By Steve Walkiewicz
Jersey bowhunter picks perfect day to ditch camcorder. In more than 25 years of bowhunting, I’ve been fortunate enough to take nine mountable deer, each buck larger than the one before it, which is my personal yardstick. The last whitetail I carried to the taxidermist was a 12-pointer I harvested in December 2007. It grossed 164 6/8 inches, w... READ MORE
Boston Butts Small Price to Pay …
By Mike Handley
For Bull of the Woods. Among the absolutes in life — death, taxes and Joan Rivers’ loyalty to her plastic surgeon — is Justin Moenkhoff’s whereabouts on opening day of Missouri’s firearms deer season. The 30-year-old from Oak Grove isn’t above striking a Faustian deal to ensure he sees the sunrise from a deer sta... READ MORE
When Fauna Fights Flora
By Mike Handley
Sometimes a guy just has to make his own luck. 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, i... READ MORE
One BIG Deer a Year
By Jill J. Easton
It started with one of those telephone calls that either strikes terror or carries great tidings. In this case, it was excellent news. “We gotta talk, and you need to see the pictures of this buck,” said Michael Hanlon’s buddy, Mack Marsh. “I got a picture of a 20-plus-pointer going down the road. It’s awesome!” ... READ MORE
Walk a Mile in His Shoes?
By Mike Handley
So many dead deer stories involve bucks taken right behind barns, inside subdivisions and in small tracts a person can cross in half a dozen strides that the age-old advice to hunt well beyond the beaten path seems almost worthless. But not to a 51-year-old printing press operator from Walker, Iowa. Kelly Doyl isn’t about to change his habit ... READ MORE
‘Er Gets Done
By Ed Waite
Fresh from a bout of buck fever, PA teen doesn’t make the same mistake twice. Sixteen-year-old Hanna Harris would’ve been positively gleeful if she’d shot the 6-pointer that passed by her deer stand on the morning of Pennsylvania’s 2010 rifle opener. The young buck was hers for the taking, too, but she watched it melt back i... READ MORE
Driving Mr. Lee
By Jill J. Easton
Not every good deed goes punished. Being neighborly has its advantages. Tom Ross helps “Mr. Lee” Simms, an older across-the-road neighbor, with his hay, cows and fences, and he even takes him to the doctor. In return for his kindness, he gets to hunt the 40-acre pasture a mere 560 yards from his front door. The pasture, ringed by trees,... READ MORE
Grunting Counteracts ‘Tink’ and Miss
By Rory Leszczynski
I’d planned to go hunting after work on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011. I had three spots in mind: where I’d found a beautiful 2-year-old, 8-point set of sheds the previous spring (about a 110-inch buck), a place that required a 35-minute drive and a 45-minute walk, and public ground where three nice bucks were rumored to be living. Wind direc... READ MORE
Not a Trace
By Mike Handley
Scavengers don’t always win scavenger hunts. When 12-year-old Joshua Poland squeezed his .270’s trigger on Dec. 28, 2011, the gratification came much later. Unlike the targets he and his dad, Terry, plink with a .22 rimfire back home near Delhi, La., the buck did not twirl in the air. In this case, the palmettos swallowed it. Fifteen mi... READ MORE
To MAAAAH or Not to MAAAAH?
By T. J. Pugh
Missouri bowhunter has only seconds to contemplate which card to play. It might’ve been dark when I headed out with my bow on Oct. 30, the first day of the 2010 youth firearms season, but I still felt like a giant pumpkin. As required during any of Missouri’s firearms seasons, I was wearing an orange vest en route to my stand near the s... READ MORE
Night of the Living Dead
By Ed Waite
Chris Miraglia’s Stark County 18-pointer is No. 7 among Ohio’s bow-taken Semi-irregulars. Chris Miraglia looked like one of George Romero’s zombies when he staggered into his suburban Ohio home on Oct. 24, 2011. Had it not been for the goofy grin underneath his bloody and creviced brow, his wife might’ve screamed. She almost... READ MORE
Making the Grade
By Chad Zimmerman
Kansas kid excels at reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic and rifles! Had my son Alex’s report card been less than exemplary back in December 2009, he would’ve gotten much more sleep on opening morning of the Kansas rifle season. He might’ve faced a home-cooked breakfast. And I might’ve come home from the woods with a gi... READ MORE
Bull Fight at Toobally
By David O’Farrell
Unwilling matadors thankful they weren’t first in the ring. The first morning of Steve Rider’s seven-day moose hunt, we spotted a bull bedded in swamp grass at the north end of the lake. We could see only antler tips rising above the grass, but enough so that we began slowly paddling closer. When our hopes for a better look were dashed ... READ MORE