“Words can’t adequately describe my excitement level at that moment,” Calvert remarked. “In fact, I had to constantly remind myself that I was 20 feet above the ground so I wouldn’t fall out of the stand. I called Stacey to tell her what had happened, but I was talking so fast she couldn’t understand what I was saying.”

After calming down and climbing out of the stand, Calvert found his first arrow. As he suspected, it was completely clean. The sound he had heard was obviously the shaft striking a limb or a tree.

Stacey was also excited and eager to begin trailing the buck. But Calvert wasn’t about to take any chances on pushing the big deer. He decided they would wait at least three hours. Both hunters readily admit it was the longest three hours they had ever spent.

Once they began to look, the trail took them through an area that had been timbered a few years earlier. Thick vegetation made the process slow and arduous. After about 80 yards, they found where the deer had laid down, just above a high bluff. From that point on, the trail angled almost straight down the hillside.

“The terrain was so steep, at times we had to literally slide down the hill,” Calvert noted. “Along the way, we noticed several broken saplings and branches where the buck had stumbled. Finally, we reached a place on the hillside where it was possible to look almost straight down, and we could see the deer lying in a narrow drain at the bottom of the hill.”

Reaching the huge whitetail and seeing its massive rack up close was every bit as thrilling as Brad had imagined. While he never had any doubt this was the same buck in the trail camera photos, the presence of a 1 1/2-inch sticker point on the rack’s left back tine positively identified the deer.

A quick examination of the buck provided a very interesting discovery. Across the deer’s back was a fresh razor-thin cut, barely breaking the skin -- obviously the result of Brad’s first arrow!

“I was truly fortunate to get a second chance at the buck,” Calvert said. “To say the least, I had the hunting experience of a lifetime. And what made it especially great was having Stacey with me that day. In all honesty, I thought she would have the best chance of seeing the buck that morning, but I guess the unexpected is what makes deer hunting so intriguing.”

Official antler measurements, taken after the required drying period, reveal some impressive statistics. The very symmetrical 5x5 frame includes long main beams of 25 5/8 and 25 4/8 inches, and an antler spread of 21 4/8 inches outside and 19 2/8 inches inside. Tine length is exceptional, with paired G-2s that tape 14 4/8 inches each, followed by G-3s of 13 0/8 and 11 7/8 inches.

In regard to scoring, the rack grosses 182 7/8 and nets, after minor asymmetry deductions and one sticker point, a final typical Pope and Young score of 176 4/8. In addition to ranking high in the P&Y record book, the buck also qualifies for the Boone and Crockett Club’s Awards and All-Time record books.

Brad Calvert’s deer is the biggest whitetail ever taken with a bow in Casey County and ranks No. 5 on the state’s all-time list of typical bow kills. Amazingly, this buck is one of four huge whitetails taken last season to top the magic 170 scoring mark in the typical category. Two of the bucks are also profiled in this issue, while the fourth -- a late-season bow kill -- will appear in the January 2007 issue of this magazine.

Find more about Kentucky fishing and hunting at: KentuckyGameandFish.com