"I always like to get a trophy, but as the season goes on and I see a smaller deer with horns, I'll take it," Scullin said. "We had breakfast and then started hunting that piece. He happened to be in there, and he ran right up the ridge to me. I took a shot and I got him. We were actually only about one-quarter mile from the house.

"I was shocked when he jumped out because I realized how big he really was. We were lucky. We could get to about 30 feet from him with the truck. It took all our effort with the three of us to get him up into that truck with one on the head and two on the rump. I was tired!"

Clarence Beayon of Bomoseen, Vermont, is just as happy with his 270-pound buck. Beayon, his brothers and a group of friends hunt the Allagash each year. They don't usually go until the third week, but snow came early in 2004.

"It was crusty, poor conditions for tracking, but at least we could find the deer," Beayon said. Around noon on Nov. 18, Beayon met one of his brothers on an old tote road.

"We came onto some tracks of a buck with a doe," he said. "I said I'd take the track. My brother stayed on the back track to see if the deer would circle back. I tracked the buck for three hours. He didn't want to leave the area because there was a bunch of does. I saw him three times but didn't have a good shot."

Beayon finally ran out of daylight. He checked his GPS unit and discovered that he was almost three miles from where he had started tracking.

The next morning, Beayon returned to the same area.

"I figured he'd go back, and that's what he did," Beayon said. "I knew he'd be right back on that hill. I tracked most of the morning. There were two good ones there, so I didn't know which one I was following. I met a friend who was sitting in a clearcut. We decide to hunt back toward the truck."

They jumped the buck as it was going back up the hill with a doe.

"I just happened to be the one to get him," Beayon said. "I pretty much lucked onto him."

JUST PLAIN LUCKY
Sidney Bubar Jr. of Bradford said planning had nothing to do with the 269-pound buck that he registered.

"I was very lucky, and I know that," Bubar said.

On Nov. 2, Bubar's cousin, Dale Hall Jr., was headed to work. He dropped Bubar off between Rockwood and Jackman.

"It was cold, but the weather was good when I started," Bubar said.

By the time he shot the buck, there was freezing rain, sleet, snow -- a little bit of everything.

"I was almost just sightseeing. I didn't expect to be that lucky," Bubar said. "I was hoping I'd see a buck -- don't get me wrong. That's why I was out there."

Bubar, who hunts for meat rather than trophies, was dumbfounded when he came across two big bucks fighting as he walked the railroad tracks.

It took Bubar "about 10 seconds" to decide to take a shot at the closest buck, a 9-pointer. "They were just distracted, and I was very lucky."

IS IT YOUR TURN?
Vanderweide expects a bumper crop of big bucks for 2005.

"I spent some time in the winter woods and everywhere I went I found tracks of deer that were moving freely from bedding to feeding areas with little sign of yarding. This means there will be plenty of healthy big bucks available next November."

That should be incentive enough for hunters to get out there in 2005.

For more information about Maine's big-buck population, visit www.state.me.us. For more about the Biggest Bucks In Maine Club or The Maine Sportsman, go to www.mainesportsman.com on the Web; call (207) 846-9501 or e-mail harryvanderweide@verizon.net.