The buck ran directly in front of Eric, who fired again. At the second shot the animal turned a somersault, landing no more than 10 steps away.

Eric called his brother Greg, who was hunting a half-mile away, with his cell phone, which he also used to take a picture of the downed buck. After 20 minutes of waiting to see if the big animal might have life left in it yet, the rifleman climbed down and walked to where his kill lay.

“He was laying on his side when I got there,” Eric remembered, “and I could only see one side of his rack. But when I picked the head up, the antlers looked like something you see on TV!”

The 180-pound White County buck has 15 scorable points: 8 on the right side, 7 on the left. At one time the rack had matching drop tines, but one side had broken off. Officially scored at the Big Buck Classic, the antlers netted 195 4/8 B&C non-typical points.

MARK CRAFT
For some 54 years Mark Craft’s parents, Woodrow and Maxine, operated Craft Grocery in Knob, a small community located about as far up in the northeast part of the state as you can get. It was one of those wonderful old-time country stores, where his dad also traded guns, knives and coins.

“When he would trade for a gun, I would have to shoot it before the deal was finalized,” Mark recalled, “to make sure it shot. I also checked in deer at the store -- and when they opened the first Zone 4 season here back in 1987 there were some real monsters brought in. Those first few years, it was nothing unusual to see 15 to 20 deer in the 150-160 class. I killed my first deer that first year; it was the first buck checked at our store.”

When Woodrow passed away five years ago the store was closed, and today Mark farms in the same area where he grew up.

“One day last fall,” he began, “a group of us were sitting around a cabin I’ve got, and several of the men started talking about big bucks they had seen in a particular area nearby. The property they were talking about belongs to a good friend of mine, Steve Crancer, and I had permission to hunt it, so I decided to ease down there the next morning.”

His son having harvested his first deer the previous day, Mark took the glands and urine from 6-year-old Jade’s kill, mixed it with Tinks 69 deer lure and, when he got to his hunting site, poured the concoction over the trees and brush around his stand.

“It was clear and cool,” he said, “and I had sat there only about 20 minutes when I saw a buck’s nose in the brush, pointed right at me; he was smelling all that scent. Just then a coyote ran by, and the buck turned his head to look at it. When he did, I knew that it was a big buck.

“That coyote ran all the way around him and he turned broadside as he watched it. I shot him at about 65 yards, and he went down. But he tried to get up, and I shot again -- and that was when I knocked one tine off!” The buck did finally struggle to its feet, and Mark shot three more times with his Remington 11-87, putting the deer down for good.

The 3 1/2-year-old monster, which weighed in at 195 pounds field-dressed, wore a 7x6 rack scoring 170 3/8 net typical points at the Big Buck Classic. It’s the first Clay County typical to be entered into the all-time B&C record book.

VONDA GAIL HOUCHIN
Dr. Houchin makes her home in Weiner, where she’s on staff at the Harrisburg Family Practice Center. The day before the two-day Zone 4 shotgun season opened, she took off early, and she and her husband Keith sighted in their shotguns.

“I only shoot my Winchester 12 gauge during the slug season,” Vonda said, laughing, “and for some reason I couldn’t hit anything that day. Keith got pretty upset with me!”