He called his father and nephew for help tracking, and they came quickly. They looked for the deer but found nothing. The blood trail, which was spotty to start with, had disappeared. As darkness set in, the hunters were faced with a decision: Keep looking, or wait till daylight? To complicate matters, rain was in the forecast! The hunters did the only thing that made sense. They waited. And it was a very long night!

The next morning, the three hunters, with the help of two more friends, went out and searched a 250-yard radius around where the deer had been hit. To Chevalier's great disappointment, they came up with nothing. It had rained all night, and what little sign that had been there the night before was now gone.

Chevalier was determined to keep looking in the coming days. He wouldn't give up that easily!

The next day after work, Chevalier received an amazing "gift" that he had not been counting on. Another hunter he knew stopped by and asked if he had been hunting the "back of the property." The men knew each other and knew they were hunting the opposite sides of the same piece of land. The man asked Chevalier if he had shot a buck, and of course, Chevalier said yes.

Joe (the other hunter) had found a big buck dead in the woods, and he contacted a game warden. The game warden, aware that Chevalier was searching for a downed buck, suggested that Joe contact Chevalier.

Joe was able to tell Chevalier exactly where the buck was. Excited and anxious, Chevalier and his nephew went to where Joe suggested, and there was the buck, lying about 200 yards from where it was originally shot. The deer had been hit behind the last rib, with the arrow coming out the front of the left shoulder, shearing the liver in a fatal blow.

Somehow, Chevalier and his crew had missed the buck during their search. But thanks to Joe -- the honest hunter -- the big buck was recovered.

Up close, Chevalier couldn't believe just how big this buck was! He thinks he probably would have missed the shot if he knew how big this deer really was! But he was always taught not to look at the rack, but to concentrate on the shot. And fortunately, that's exactly what he had done.

Chevalier and his nephew dragged the buck out of the woods and checked him in. His dressed weight was an impressive 190 pounds, but his rack grabbed most of the attention.

Chevalier had his buck officially scored by Roscoe Blaisdell, a local Boone and Crockett Club scorer and president of the New Hampshire Antler and Skull Trophy Club.

The gross score before asymmetry deductions (used by the Northeast Big Buck Club) was 183 0/8. The net score after deductions was 175 4/8 (the final score for Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young).

The 12-point typical rack sports main beams of 25 7/8 and 26 0/8 inches, with an inside spread of 20 4/8 inches. The G-2s are very impressive at 12 2/8 inches and 13 1/8 inches. The antler bases are a respectable 4 6/8 inches on each side. There is even a 13th point, although it was abnormal and did not count toward the gross typical score.

The Chevalier buck replaces last year's new archery typical Granite State record, a 163 4/8-inch 9-pointer arrowed by New Hampshire resident Jim Stockman in Carroll County in 2003. Stockman's buck replaced J.C. Town's 162 2/8-inch 9-pointer shot in Carroll County in September of 2002.

Is this a trend? For three consecutive years, a new state-record typical archery buck in New Hampshire. Will hunters do it again in 2005?

A HAPPY ENDING
It isn't often that there is a happy ending to a story involving a wounded archery buck, a game warden and another hunter. But thanks to persistence on the part of Chevalier and the honesty of the archer who shared his hunting grounds, New Hampshire has a new, "clean" state-record typical archery buck!

Stories like this one are good for our sport and good for our spirits. Let's hope for similar success and camaraderie in 2005!