And with that aforementioned 280,000 acres, it also stands to reason that some remote pockets in which an old buck can find the solitude necessary to get some age on him still exist. The book non-typicals that young Kylan McCutcheon of Jasper and Richard Little of Lincoln took during the 2004-05 season are proof that this very thing can and does happen.

So get a map or aerial photo of the area you want to hunt; then, look for spots a mile or more away from roads and trails. Pay special attention to small creek bottoms and spots where several ridge points come together, especially if there are oaks at the spot and they're dropping acorns. Then park your truck and get out your GPS unit. Pack along a lunch and plan on staying all day, especially when the rut peak occurs around the middle of November. Hunting the mountains, be it the Ozarks or the Ouachitas, ain't easy, but just maybe the rewards are there!

In both the Ozarks and Ouachitas are two types of areas that should beckon to any big-buck hunter: walk-in turkey areas and wilderness areas. All vehicle travel within these designated spots is prohibited, and because many hunters don't go unless they can ride, human intrusion is kept to a minimum.

So where would I go when I come to my senses and leave the mountains behind?

When Felsenthal NWR was formed back in 1970, it was generally touted as being, at least potentially, another White River. The plain truth is that it hasn't happened, and to my knowledge, there has never been a B&C buck taken on this 64,000-acre facility located west of Crossett.

The primary plus of the facility is that it has great diversity, ranging from pine ridges on the north to deep swamps in the south. The area north of state Highway 82, above the confluence of the Saline and Ouachita rivers, is prime river bottom hunting, while the occasional "islands" within the swampy areas further south allow old bucks security spots to retreat to when hunting pressure is heavy.

It's the amount of pressure that makes managed-public areas so potentially productive. Last year gun hunting on Felsenthal consisted of a two-day muzzleloader season in mid-October with a pair of two-day modern gun hunts on the first two weekends in November. Compared to public and even many private areas, that's not a lot of pressure, the very reason why a big buck may well live on Felsenthal today.

The rut occurs around Thanksgiving, so my choice would be to hunt the second gun segment in November. If the weather's warm, mosquito spray is a necessity. Locals have told me that one reason more and bigger bucks aren't killed at Felsenthal is because to have find them you have to get back into more remote parts of the swamps with deeper water, and most hunters don't do that. Having hunted the facility on two occasions I think they're likely right, and I have also learned that a small boat, along with good waders and a compass, are required, especially in wetter years.

Cache River NWR gained a lot of notoriety when young Bill Dooley of Biscoe took the Arkansas state-record non-typical just outside its borders back in 1999. Then, in 2002 Jerry Griggs harvested another Booner there, this one a 13x13 monster that scored 201 4/8 non-typical points. Two B&C bucks in three years is impressive.