DON HOUCHENS' AMAZING 8-POINTER
For Don Houchens, the weather was unbearably cold on the mid-November morning back in 1969. After enduring the below-freezing temperatures for nearly two hours, he left the deer stand and returned to his truck to warm up. A short while later, after taking the chill off, the hunter decided to slowly still-hunt through a nearby section of woods.

"As I approached a dense thicket, a small buck jumped up and began running," Houchens recalled. "Instinctively, I threw up my rifle and fired, but the bullet struck a tree."

The hunter remained standing near the thicket for several minutes, allowing himself to calm down from the excitement. As he looked on, a doe suddenly exited the dense undergrowth, followed seconds later by a monster buck.

"I really couldn't believe what I was seeing," he said. "To say the least, I was excited. But in this case I had plenty of time, and the buck wasn't running."

The huge whitetail, a near-perfect 8-pointer, had an exceptionally big rack with long tines and tremendous mass. A number of times over the years, Houchens considered having the rack officially scored, but things never quite worked out. Finally, last fall, 36 years after he took the buck, the giant antlers were finally measured.

The rack's long main beams tape 28 inches, and the antler spread is 22 3/8 inches outside, 20 2/8 inches inside. The rack's tine length is truly outstanding, with amazing G-1 brows that measure 9 3/8 and 8 0/8 inches. The paired G-2s tape 13 1/8 and 12 7/8 inches, and the G-3s are 10 3/8 and 9 5/8 inches.

In regard to scoring, the rack exhibits great symmetry, with no abnormal points. After grossing an amazing 175 1/8, the final net score drops only slightly to 171 4/8. As an 8-pointer, the deer qualifies for both B&C record books. Additionally, this score places the Logan County buck in a tie with Kentucky's top 8-pointer of all time, a giant buck from Union County that was taken in 1982 by Wayne Gibson. Considering the exceptional size of these two great whitetails, it is somewhat fitting that they hold the No. 1 spot together.