The buck ran about 65 to 70 yards before it lay down and died. That's when Hyler began, as he said, "whooping and hollering," so much so that Bandy quickly arrived on the scene. The 10-point buck scores 125 5/8 Pope and Young and features a 22-inch inside spread. Interestingly, the buck that Hyler did not have a shot at was noticeably larger than the one he killed and will be his quest for the 2007 season.

JIMMY BROUGHMAN AND HIS BOTETOURT BEHEMOTH
Jimmy Broughman is a 31-year-old metal fabricator from Eagle Rock and upon my meeting him, he quickly reminded me that I had taught him English at Lord Botetourt High School. Jimmy has been a deer hunter since he was 13 and averages killing about five deer annually. The Botetourt County resident has mounted four of his whitetails.

Broughman's story begins three years ago, when he and his brother, Jason, located an impressive rub line in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest of Botetourt. The duo returned to the locale during bow season and observed large numbers of does and small bucks but no shooters. This was very disappointing to them, because the maker or makers of that sign never made an appearance.

The national forest land in question is landlocked on two sides and requires an all-day hike to reach it via a public access road. But the brothers have permission to go afield on a farm that borders the other two sides of the property. That property features a field that abuts the public land.

"The public land doesn't get much hunting pressure, so Jason and I set out to really learn it," Broughman told me. "The first year, we tried to learn the game runs, the bedding and feeding areas, the whole nine yards. The second year, we didn't hunt it much because we were chasing a different buck, and we also didn't realize the land's potential.

"But the third year right before muzzleloader season began, we saw this massive buck with about a 24-inch spread feeding out in the farmer's field in the middle of the day. So we developed a game plan where we could possibly intersect that big buck."

The field borders what Broughman labels "foothills" that in turn abut a mountaintop ridge with the requisite mountain laurel thicket. Three finger ridges feed down from the mountain toward the foothills. Jimmy and Jason decided not to hunt the finger ridges during the few remaining days before the early muzzleloader season, fearing that they might alarm the big buck. They both also felt that they would have a better chance to take him with a smokepole than a compound.

When the opening day of muzzleloader season came, the brothers and friend Tristan Beagles each positioned themselves on a finger ridge. Interestingly, each sportsman constructed a ground blind constituted of tree boughs and limbs.

"I love hunting from homemade ground blinds," Broughman said. "I don't cut anything, just use dead stuff lying around. I position a blind on a vantage point so I can look down and watch a trail. Ground blinds have many advantages over tree stands; they are quicker and easier to construct, safer, and I don't have to worry about someone running off with one.

"On opening day, I was counting on hunting pressure driving the deer up to us. Earlier in the season, I had killed a 9-pointer in Amherst County, so I put Jason and Tristan on what I thought were the hottest trails. That morning, I basically saw nothing; meanwhile, they were covered up with deer. They weren't horn hunting, so my brother shot a 3-pointer and Tristan a 4-pointer. I helped them drag their deer out, and they went on home and I went back to the finger ridges."

Tristan had told Broughman that early that morning a huge contingent of deer had made their way by him and up a finger ridge. So, it was on that ridge that he decided to make his evening ground blind.

"I figured that the deer would come right back down that finger ridge that evening," he continued. "I believe that evening deer almost always go back down the ridge that they ran up in the morning. But the reverse isn't true. A deer that goes down a certain ridge in the evening could go up any number of ridges the following morning, depending on where it found food during the night."

The place where the Eagle Rock sportsman selected for a blind lies in incredibly thick mountain laurel with a pine grove nearby. Indeed, the copse is so dense that Broughman could see only 25 to 30 yards. The sitting was uneventful until about 45 minutes before sunrise. The smokepoler had been blowing on a grunt tube (two shorts and one long) when a big buck metamorphosed in front of him and began pacing back and forth but not presenting a shot.

"I kept putting my scope on him but I couldn't fire," Broughman recalled. "Meanwhile, this doe comes in at the front of my stand and begins to blow and carry on. When does do that, I begin aggressively grunting back at them. That grunting either spooks them or dries them up, and sure enough, she shuts up.