Only one word adequately describes McCutcheon's deer: impressive. Photo by Kenn Young

The last fifteen years or so have been good to the state of Arkansas when it comes to big-buck production -- a period during which the state has annually yielded an average of four bucks large enough to meet the minimum requirements of the Boone and Crockett Club, the nation's oldest records-keeping agency.

To appreciate properly where we are today, a short history lesson is in order.

Back in 1965, almost entirely thanks to the efforts of Dr. Rex Hancock of Stuttgart, the state's first B&C scorer, and a group of helpers known as the "posse," Arkansas, which had 47 deer listed in the club's record book, was ranked second only to Saskatchewan on the entire North American continent!

I suppose you could call that time the high-water mark of the Natural State's reputation for big bucks, at least on a national scale. Magazines from New York to California overnight trumpeted the prospects in this "new" trophy hotbed, and numerous outdoor writers toured the state to find out what was going on here.

But the next year Dr. Hancock disassociated himself from the Boone and Crockett organization, which, as you will see below, left a void. Then came 1968, when, in a move that knocked 31 Arkansas heads out of the lists, the club raised its minimums to the current 170 for typicals, 195 for non-typicals.

The state then went more than 20 years (1965-87) without one single entry being added. That was probably the low point, and during that period many experts wondered if it were even possible for Arkansas to produce bucks large enough to achieve record-book status under the new minimums.

Hindsight being 20/20, we now know that a number of bucks taken during that period were plenty large enough to make either book. In fact, Thomas Sparks' state-record typical, the largest whitetail taken by a hunter in the entire Southeast at that time, was killed near Natural Dam in Crawford County in 1975. It hung on Tom's bedroom wall until 1987, when it was finally scored.

I mentioned earlier that Arkansas has averaged four B&C bucks per year for the last decade, and last season hit that number right on the head. Here, then, are the stories of the biggest of the big from 2004-05!

THE NATURAL STATE'S LARGEST BUCK OF 2004-5
Richard Little
The "barbed-wire buck," as it has become known, is featured elsewhere in this issue. Taken in Washington County, and scoring 221 1/8 net non-typical points, this buck offers graphic evidence that trophy potential is on the rise in the mountain regions.

LARGEST ARKANSAS TYPICAL
Charles Crafford
On Dec. 27 of last year, 66-year-old Charles Crafford (pronounced "Crawford") was deer hunting on a friend's property up in Woodruff County, not all that far from the edge of Black Swamp. The Brinkley resident's "stand" that day was a standing fuel tank -- basically, a barrel standing 8 feet off the ground on legs -- that he'd modified for the purpose. He was set up overlooking a ditch filled with hardwoods running between two densely-planted pine thickets.

A week earlier, Charlie had seen a large buck, along with several does, in a nearby bean field. When the buck headed for cover, he limped; it was evident that something was wrong with his right front leg.