The author with the mount of his 197 3/8-inch non-typical, the largest Pope and Young bow kill from Virginia ever. The buck has 22 scorable points. Photo courtesy of Tony Hodges.

Growing up in a country setting in south-central Virginia, I had many opportunities to hunt. There were not many deer or turkeys at that time, but there were some. My family hunted whitetails, but I just wasn't interested back then. The couple of times they talked me into going with them, I either ended up cold, or cold and wet. I guess I just gave up on it too easily and never gave it a fair chance.

Around 1990, when I was in my early 20s, my only brother, Barry, gave me the encouragement I needed to give whitetails another try. That's something he had been doing successfully since we were kids. Instead of just giving it a whirl, I jumped into it with both feet. I was determined to stick with it and give it a valiant effort.

In 1993, I started bowhunting. I never thought I would actually take a deer with a bow, but I figured it would get me into the deer woods earlier and more often. I also thought it might help me become a better deer hunter. Over the next 10 years, I was lucky occasionally and took a doe or small buck with my bow. During that time, my passion for bowhunting and my dream of taking a Pope and Young buck grew to such a high level that I decided to bowhunt the full whitetail season and have ever since.

Fall 2006 would be my fourth straight season with a bow only. Maybe, I thought, this will be my year to get a chance at a Pope and Young buck. While scouting in the late summer of 2006 to familiarize myself with the lay of the land on some hunting ground I hoped to hunt, I found the remains of a mid-150-inch buck. I was so excited about this bruiser that I ran all the way back to my truck. For this area, this was a very large buck. After I calmed down, I realized that this find was bittersweet. He was a great buck, but now no hunter would ever get the chance at him again. Still, I feel very fortunate to have been the one to find his rack.

This was already a great start to the upcoming fall hunting season. I felt like I had already been successful. Little did I know what the year was about to offer this bowhunter. Oct. 30, 2006, was a day I will never forget. That day my hunting goal not only came true, but far surpassed even my wildest dreams.

Oct. 30 actually started in early September for me. I had spent some time scouting then for bow season, which was all but here. I looked for places that might be buck funnel spots when the hormones get bucks moving more in the daylight. I found what I thought were a couple of good buck spots, if I could get in without alerting all deer in the area.

I was determined to stay away from these spots until I thought the bucks might be chasing does. Going on what I had seen and what others had told me of their hunting observations, the last week of October seemed to be the beginning of the chase phase.

Friday, Oct. 27, was my last day of work that week. I was off the next three days. Saturday, I had too much to do to hunt and there is no hunting on Sunday, but because of seeing and hearing about more buck activity, I decided it was time to try one of my buck ambush spots that Monday. I watched the weather forecast and it looked to be a clear day with light winds out of the north and northwest, and fairly warm temperatures in the afternoon.