Mark Craft admires a full-body mount of his monster 170-class buck. Joining in the appreciation is Mark’s son Jade. Photo courtesy of Kenn Young.

If I remember correctly, this is my ninth year of doing the big-buck roundup for Arkansas Sportsman. It’s as enjoyable as any piece that I write, and over the years I’ve had the opportunity to visit with some fine people, just about all of whom were simply thrilled and thankful to have been able to harvest a great deer.

Back in 1996, seven Natural State bucks large enough for inclusion into the all-time record book of the Boone and Crockett Club were killed -- the most ever taken in a single season. However, one of those was the big bow kill taken just a few days after the New Year by Donald Ray Sweetin of Tichnor. Even though included in the totals for 1996, it was actually taken during the 1995-96 season.

Last fall, six potential B&C bucks were taken, which ties the most ever actually taken in a single season. Two of those, the Jordening and Gennings deer, have been featured in other articles in this magazine. That leaves some very impressive deer for inclusion into the 2006-07 Arkansas big-buck roundup!

TRAVIS MITCHELL
Sixty four-year-old Travis Mitchell makes his home in Hot Springs, but spends most of his “quality time” at the Yellow Creek Hunt Club, 2,500 acres of fields and hardwoods located down in Hempstead County, a few miles from McNab. The club, which has some 50 members -- most of them duck hunters -- has been in existence for more than 60 years, with Travis himself acting as the deer manager on the property for some 20 years.

Back in the mid-’80s the group brought in James Kroll, who at that time was still a few years away from being “Dr. Deer,” and had him provide a slide show to all the clubs in the area in an effort to convince their members to adopt a quality management program. After that, an 8-point rule was initiated, along with a 15-inch inside-spread requirement.

One day in early December of last year Travis went on a “walkabout” to look over 40 acres of overgrown farmland adjacent to a soybean field, having seen a large deer cross the road leading to the field a few days before. At one point he found several good rubs barely back into the trees along the edge of the opening. A “club stand” overlooked the field, so he decided to use that.

On the evening of Dec. 8, a nice-looking 10-pointer followed four does into a small cleared spot close by the rub. Travis was trying to get a good look at him when he became aware of another deer back in the edge of the timber. “You know how it is,” Travis said with a laugh. “The one you can’t quite see is always bigger than the one you can see.” The “bigger” buck in the timber never came out, and Travis didn’t fire, but the next evening, Dec. 9, he was back on the same stand.

“It was déjà vu all over again,” Travis recalled. “The does came out a little after 4:00 o’clock, but this time the big boy came out with them, about 150 yards away.”

Hunting another stand some 400 yards away, two friends, Robee Carter and Ronnie Ralph, watched the buck come out of the woods through their binoculars, and actually saw it jump as Travis fired. The hard-hit buck barely made it to the treeline before going down.

Carter and Ralph, as excited as the happy hunter was, helped Travis load the buck up and take it back to the cabin. And there was good reason to be excited: The 6x7 rack was later scored at 171 7/8 net typical points.

Travis, a pharmacist with the Arkansas bioterrorism department/ Homeland Security, had waited 50 years for his buck of a lifetime. “We kill deer like this in our dreams,” he concluded with a chuckle, “but my dream became reality!”