After gathering his composure, Shawn climbed out of the stand and called his brother Jeff, who was about a half-hour away. After he got there, the brothers began looking for a blood trail. They scanned the ground for hints of blood but didn’t find a trace for about 75 yards. However, they stayed on the faint crimson trail until the point at which the arrow had fallen out of the deer, and the blood trail became steady. After going another 75 yards, they found the slain 8-pointer.

Following: the stats on Shawn Hoerstkamp’s buck.

• Inside spread: 18 1/8 inches.

• Main beams: right, 25 7/8 inches; left, 25 7/8 inches.

• Gross score: 148 2/8 inches.

• Net typical score: 143 1/8 inches.

“I really think the 4-point rule makes a difference,” Hoerstkamp concluded. “We all saw more bucks than does this year. In fact, we saw 15 bucks and four does in rifle season alone.”

CAMDEN COUNTY
They say it’s a very small world that we live in -- and here’s another example of just how small it is: A mere week after Shawn Hoerstkamp killed his biggest buck ever, his old college roommate, O’Fallon bowhunter Ryan Gibson, did the same.

Gibson, who’s been hunting deer for seven years, uses a rifle for about two days in the year; the rest of his deer hunting is done with a compound bow in hand. He hunts on a 1,200-acre private lease in Camden County that he shares with his father-in-law, cousin, uncle, and two friends. The land is about 65 percent hardwoods, with the balance in bottomland fields and pasture.

With very little time to scout before the season, Ryan used the Internet to log into Google Earth; from there he scouted the lease through aerial photographs. It was on one of these photos that he found the funnel area in which he set up his climbing stand -- some 30 feet off the ground -- on Sept. 29, 2006.

Ryan left MSU early that day, arriving at the property late in the afternoon; by the time he got situated in his stand, it was 3:45 p.m. The day was overcast, and the wind was blowing from the southwest, a decent direction for the funnel area he was hunting.

At about 4 p.m., four does and two fawns passed right through the funnel and walked by Ryan’s stand at just 15 yards. He considered arrowing one of the big does but decided to pass. Twenty minutes later, he spotted nothing but antlers 120 yards out in another field north of his stand. The big buck methodically walked and fed toward Ryan’s stand; it was almost more than the archer could take.

“I had to watch that buck walk the entire 120 yards toward me,” Gibson said. “It took almost 20 minutes for him to get within range, and all I could do was just sit there and shake.”

At 27 yards, Gibson drew back his bow and sent his arrow deep into the deer’s lungs. When the buck whirled around to escape, knocking down a barbed-wire fence. It continued just 40 yards before it collapsed.