"The longer I looked, the more nervous I became. Had I had somehow made a poor shot?

"Eventually, my legs began shaking so badly I had to sit down."

After thinking over the situation for several minutes, the hunter returned to the dirt road and began walking slowly toward the cemetery, carefully searching with his flashlight along both side of the road.

"Several yards down the road, my beam hit something sticking up out of the roadside ditch," Thomas recalled.

"That 'something' turned out to be one side of the buck's rack. Words can't really express how I felt at that moment, or when I saw the buck's antlers up close for the first time.

"Definitely an experience I will never forget!"

The buck's giant rack places it in a truly unforgettable class of whitetails, especially for Kentucky's eastern mountains. The huge 12-point typical frame includes 26-inch main beams and an antler spread of 23 inches outside and 21 5/8 inches inside, plus exceptional antler mass. Five of the eight circumferences measure 5 inches or more.

After grossing 189 1/8, minor asymmetry deductions, plus three sticker points, reduce the final P&Y score to 180 4/8. This also qualifies the deer for both B&C record books.

Additionally, the buck ranks as the state's top typical bow kill of 2007, and is the biggest typical whitetail ever recorded for Breathitt County.

TWO HENDERSON COUNTY TROPHY BOW KILLS
During the 2003 season, John Rutledge took Henderson County's biggest all-time typical whitetail -- a gigantic 12-pointer grossing 195 6/8 and netting 183 /8 B&C points. While hunting with Rutledge last November, bowhunters Lex Luby and Rob Grubb also took outstanding bucks.

Positioned along a small ridge above a hardwood bottom, Lex was overlooking a line of very fresh scrapes. The hunter was wet and cold from sitting nearly three hours in a steady morning rain, but he quickly forgot his discomfort when two does went past his stand, trailed by a heavy-antlered buck.

Using a crossbow, Lex connected on a perfect 25-yard shot.

The big whitetail had a massive 8-point typical frame with deep forks on both matching back tines (G-2s), which tape over 11 inches. The long main beams exceed 26 inches, and their inside spread is 19 6/8 inches. Nearly 18 inches of abnormal points pushes the final non-typical score to 171 6/8.

This makes the Henderson County buck the state's second-biggest non-typical to be taken with a crossbow.

Bowhunter Rob Grubb was positioned in a narrow wooded draw about 75 yards from a combined bean field, watching a travel corridor that deer had been using to enter and exit the field.

On his third morning at the location, following a heavy rain, the hunter watched an impressive 11-pointer walk under his stand. Minutes later, he arrowed a much larger 10-pointer that was trailing another deer.

Its massive rack includes 25 1/2-inch main beams and four tines that measure between 9 7/8 and 8 4/8 inches. After grossing 159 1/8, the very symmetrical rack nets a final P&Y score of 155 3/8.