"And just when I thought everything was falling into place, the buck stopped within 25 yards of my stand and looked straight up at me. And although I was already to draw -- my release already attached to my string and my bow in position -- seeing this deer and realizing how nice he was, the thought quickly occurred to me I might not get a shot at him.

"The buck would drop his head, then immediately look back up at me. I didn't move a muscle and tried my best not to look at the buck. This stare-down seemed to go on forever!"

And just as Riley's heart sank, thinking he wasn't going to get a shot at what would have been the biggest buck of his life, a smaller buck chased a doe right in behind the big buck. And the situation suddenly changed in Riley's favor.

This distraction caused the buck to turn away. And as it took two or three steps, Riley found his opportunity to come to full draw. And when the buck stopped, Riley settled his sight pin on the buck, now standing at 22 yards and quartering away. He released the string and watched as his arrow, tipped with a Lumenock nock, buried deep into the buck's vital area behind the shoulder.

"This is actually the first year I'd ever used Lumenocks on my hunting arrows," recalls Riley. "But man, I sure was glad I had used them this time. Not only did it help me know exactly where my arrow hit the deer, it also helped tremendously in the recovery of this buck. The arrow stayed in the deer as he ran off, so I felt it must have hit the shoulder on the exit side, preventing a complete pass-through. That arrow nock was lit up like a Christmas tree, so I could easily see the buck as it ran across the field, then entered the woods on the opposite side of the field."

Riley didn't waste any time in calling Phillip on his cell phone. He left a message, but was just too nervous to wait for his friend to call him back. So after what seemed an eternity (actually only two or three minutes), he called him again.

On Riley's second attempt, Phillip answered his phone. "You've got to get over here," Riley remembers telling him. "I've shot a Boone-and-Crockett-class deer!"

But after Phillip arrived, Riley admitted to him that although this buck might not gross high enough to make B&C, he would score pretty darned close to it.

The two hunting buddies walked across the field to track the buck. The rain was picking up momentum, and it was beginning to get dark. Riley confessed to becoming especially worried about the possibility of not recovering his deer.

"I'd already walked across the field and never did find a drop of blood. At least not until I reached the edge of the woods where the buck left the field. I used a piece of surveying tape to mark a little cedar tree at the far end of the field, about 200 yards away, where I spotted a few drops of blood. By the time Phillip had arrived, it was getting pretty dark.

"We decided not to wait and started off through the woods to look for my deer. The blood trail was sparse, mostly just drops here and there. I have to admit, I was getting pretty anxious about the small amount of blood we were finding. I really didn't know what to do. I would normally back out and wait. But because of the rain, we finally decided to continue the search.

"We hadn't gone far when I looked ahead and saw the illuminated nock on my arrow about 100 yards away. I got so excited. It was shining like a beacon through the dark woods.

"All of a sudden I grabbed Phillip and shouted, 'There's my nock! There's my nock!'

"Phillip was confused and looked at me like I'd gone absolutely crazy. He didn't have a clue what I was shouting about, since he'd never shot a Lumenock before. I quickly explained to him that I had Lumenocks on my arrows and how they worked."

Riley laughingly recalls pushing Phillip in the direction of that beacon and literally begging him to go look at that arrow . . . and to please come back and tell him there was a dead deer lying under it.

It didn't take long for the two hunting buddies to reach the lighted arrow nock. And just as Riley had hoped, there at the other end of that beacon, was indeed a monster buck.

Needless to say, there was a lot of whooping and hollering going on in the woods that night. Riley's Logan County buck was, indeed, a heavy-antlered, huge-bodied 14-point buck -- and the biggest buck of his hunting career. It took Riley, Pillow and two more buddies, Jeff and Eric Harris, to get the buck out of the woods and into the back of Riley's pickup.

Once they got back into town and were able to weigh it, they discovered the buck field-dressed at a whopping 205 pounds!