Photo by R.E. Ilg

Even in deer-rich Missouri, most hunters will spend a lifetime in the woods without ever seeing a buck large enough to make the Show-Me Big Buck Club's 140-inch typical and 155-inch non-typical minimums. But to shoot a Boone and Crockett buck (170-inch typical and 195-inch non-typical) is the deer hunting equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen. Nevertheless, a few Show Me State deer hunters do exactly that. Here are the stories of a few of the handful of men who climbed that mountain in 2004.

BEN SUTTON, CHILLICOTHE
Ben Sutton was 11 when he shot his first deer. He was 20 when the 2004 deer season opened, and, despite having "missed a few hunting seasons in between," considered himself to have passed well beyond the novice stage. I suppose there's room for debate on both sides of that issue, but for what it's worth, he told the story of his hunt with fewer words and a far greater sense of detachment than did any of the other hunters who appear in this article.

On opening morning, Ben and his father were hunting their family farm. The stand was situated to give its occupants an overview of a little grass field. In addition to a fencerow boundary on one side, deer bedding in or crossing the field had ready access to heavy cover in big ditches and hills on both sides, he said.

An old adage: "Some days, chicken; some days, feathers." The father-son Sutton combo understands the point of this bromide all too well. About two hours after daylight, the elder Mr. Sutton's leg began to fall asleep, prompting him to decide to leave the stand. Ben stayed put, and only a few minutes later, a big buck walked out into the field. He immediately turned back into a fencerow before stopping broadside to the young hunter. A single shot from Ben's .30/06 ended the hunt.

Ben had never seen the buck prior to killing it. However, he quickly pointed out, "We hadn't hunted that particular spot for several years."

Ben's typical nets 180 6/8 inches despite 17 inches of deductions. Talk about a trophy whitetail! Fans of both typical and non-typical racks will agree that Ben Sutton has taken the buck of a lifetime before he was old enough to buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate his achievement. Even so, don't spend too much time feeling sorry for him. Buoyed by the confidence of youth, he told me he intends to tag a bigger buck in 2005.

DAVID SPARKS, NEVADA
If you're wearing a cap, get ready, because you'll soon have an urge to tip it both to a magnificent buck and to the man who shot him. David Sparks doesn't live on a Missouri Century Farm, and neither does he hunt on a high-dollar private land lease. To the contrary, he works as an anesthetist at the Nevada hospital and does his deer hunting on public land.

Sparks demonstrated what -- to me at least -- is a true passion for deer and deer hunting by shooting a doe on opening day. Here, obviously, is a man who doesn't need antlers to feel that he's been deer hunting.

On the other hand, Sparks, like most of us, welcomes any opportunity to take a trophy whitetail. So the following Friday after taking the doe, he drove to a block of public bottomland that he hadn't hunted before.