At the shot, the buck ran in a little circle, and then jumped the fence, disappearing from sight. It was getting dark by then, and Donald sat and waited until Debbie drove their 4-wheeler down to where the deer had gone over the fence.

"We tried to use the headlight to see the buck," Donald remembered, "but the vines along the fencerow were so thick we couldn't see through it. Finally, I walked to a gap in the fence, and could see the white belly of the buck lying there."

They loaded the buck, which had points sticking up in every direction, along with drop tines on both sides, into their truck and drove to the sheriff's office to check it.

"People started showing up from everywhere to get a look at the deer," Donald said. "it's amazing how quick word spreads about a big buck. With all the questions and pictures it was nearly midnight before we got back home."

The 21-point buck, with 11 on the right side and 10 on the left, was officially scored at the Big Buck Classic in Little Rock. Donald's monster benetted 199 4/8 B&C as a non-typical. That score makes it not only eligible for the club's all-time records list, but also the first book buck ever taken in Little River County!

LARGEST ARKANSAS BUCK TAKEN BY A YOUTH
Kylan McCutcheon
Kylan McCutcheon may have been only 16 years old when he took his big non-typical last season, but he's packed a lot of deer hunting into that relatively short span. The 25-point Newton County non-typical that crossed his path on Nov. 15 was the 11th deer that the young man has taken, seven of those bucks.

On a crisp and clear Sunday morning Kylan, a junior at Jasper High School, left his house long before daylight and drove to his favorite spot, which is on some private property west of Parthenon. There, at the base of a large tree, he had built a ground blind out of some limbs, and there he was sitting quietly a good 30 minutes before first light.

"It's kind of an area of open woods surrounded by thick brush," Kylan said, "and from where I was sitting you can see for quite a ways. It was slow that morning, and up until about 11:15 I hadn't seen anything at all. Then I saw a doe trotting along, and could hear a buck grunting behind her.

"All of a sudden he came out of a dense cedar thicket about 150 yards away! The wind was wrong, and he winded me, then turned and ran almost directly away from where I was. I got my Remington autoloader up and fired just before he went out of sight."

Going to the spot at which the buck had disappeared, Kylan found a good blood trail leading off to the west. He trailed the buck for a half-mile or so, and then radioed his dad, Stanley, to come and help. The two of them followed the trail together until Kylan finally had to leave to go to his job at the Junction Quick-Stop in Parthenon.