A quick examination revealed that all three of his shots had hit the deer, although one struck only a leg.

Did his last-minute swap of hunting rifles make the difference between taking the buck or not? It's impossible to say, but one thing's for sure: Without the switch, he'd have been limited to only one shot.

From an appearance standpoint, the buck's rack is truly awesome, exhibiting a great combination of spread, tine length and antler mass. Most hunters would consider any buck with 9-inch G-2s to be a respectable trophy; amazingly, this measurement represents the Lewis County's buck G-4s! The G-3 tines measure 13 4/8 and 12 2/8 inches, and the G-2s tape out at 15 1/8 and 11 6/8 inches. Also, the 12-point frame has long main beams of 28 3/8 and 27 3/8 inches, and an antler spread of 23 0/8 inches outside and 20 3/8 inches inside.

The rack grosses an amazing figure of 199 7/8. Unfortunately, a number of side-to-side asymmetry deductions, plus one 3-inch abnormal point, drops the final typical Boone and Crockett (B&C) score to 187 3/8. Nevertheless, this is still a tremendous score, ranking the deer as the No. 1 typical for the 2005-06 season, and occupying the 11th slot on the state's all-time B&C list of typical whitetails.

Surprisingly, Lewis is one of only two counties in the entire state where a buck of this size ranks no higher than third place. The other two giant typicals include Jim Cooper's state- record blackpowder buck scoring 189 3/8, taken in 1999, and Ben Johnson's huge 12-pointer, scoring 188 5/8, taken in 1993.

Interestingly, of the seven typical bucks taken last season that scored over 170, four were taken by bow, including the year's No. 2 buck, an impressive 11-pointer that scores 179 0/8, taken in Shelby County by Cliff Willoughby. For the hunt story and photos of this big deer, plus the additional three giant typical bow kills, please see the issues of Kentucky Game & Fish for August '06, September '06, and January '07.

THE DARREL SCRUGGS BUCK
The No. 3 typical buck of 2005 scores 178 0/8 and was taken in Pulaski County by Darrell Scruggs of Somerset. He's been hunting deer for a number of years, but the conditions surrounding the taking of this huge whitetail were a little different than on any other trip he had experienced.

"A strong weather front had moved through the state, and there were high winds all night long," Scruggs said. "The following morning before daybreak, I drove to the farm where I planned to hunt. But the wind was so strong, I sat in the truck until daylight. After finally realizing there was going to be no possibility of hunting from a stand, I grabbed my rifle and binoculars and decided to do some walking, knowing there was no chance of a deer hearing me."

After circling through several acres of woods without encountering any deer, the hunter decided to check several alfalfa fields before heading back to the truck. After seeing nothing in the alfalfa, Scruggs was following a woods line across an open bottom when he spotted two deer standing in a distant strip of winter wheat.

"I estimated the distance at nearly 400 yards. But even so, the buck looked extremely big, even without my using the binoculars," he said. "I dropped to the ground and used the embankment of an old field road as a solid rest for the rifle."