Reuben Haynes' very tall 10-point muzzleloader buck and Randy Armstrong's big, wide 8-point both proved to be the biggest bucks in their respective categories at the Dixie Deer Classic this year -- and both came from Stokes County. Photo by Dan Kibler

Ten years ago, if you mentioned Stokes County to a bunch of deer hunters at the Dixie Deer Classic, they might have had to get out a map of North Carolina to figure out where you were talking about.

No more.

Not since Stokes County became "Trophy Buck Central."

The guys at the Wake County Wildlife Club might as well have the plaques standing by to send back on I-40 west to Winston-Salem, then north on U.S. 52 to the place that was previously best known for the outlaws who continue to hunt with dogs 30 years after that became illegal and run up spotlighting convictions faster than a crooked accountant can run up bad numbers on an adding machine.

Somehow, the bad guys are no longer winning. Big, big bucks continue to get checked in on a regular basis at Betty's Country Grocery out in the country and at other check stations. These bucks are apparently living long enough to grow some mighty impressive headgear.

Over the past four years, bucks from Stokes County have been the biggest taken in North Carolina by bowhunters on two different occasions, the biggest taken with muzzleloaders two different years, and the county has produced the two biggest bucks taken by traditional gun in two of the past three years -- including a Boone and Crockett trophy.

Last March, the Dixie Deer Classic's big-buck contest spit out Randy Armstrong's fantastic 8-point buck, a Stokes County beast that scored 159 3/8 and won as the biggest typical whitetail taken by traditional gun in 2004. And Reuben Haynes' tall, narrow 10-point buck, also from Stokes County, scored 154 3/8 and was the biggest killed in North Carolina with a blackpowder weapon in 2004.

Joining those two as winners in the three most important categories last March was Adam Whitt of Mebane, whose 10-point buck from Alamance County scored 150 points and was the largest typical buck taken by a bowhunter in North Carolina in 2004.

Armstrong was "amazed" that an 8-pointer won the big-buck contest in Raleigh. "That's not gonna happen many times that an 8-pointer beats out 10s and 12s," he said. "I wasn't expecting that. I'd never had it scored. I just figured that was a good place to get it scored."

Armstrong, who lives in Walnut Cove, also never expected to kill a buck that big. On the property he was hunting, he had trail cameras out and had hunted several times during bow season. In addition, his 18-year-old son, Austin, and a couple of brothers-in-law had hunted the area. The trail cameras picked up the usual assortment of does and small bucks, including one big cowhorn -- but no trophy bucks. And nobody had seen hide or hair of anything that would remotely be considered a trophy.

"I had fixed up a flood plot and built a stand in there, along a creek bottom," said Armstrong, who works at Reynolds Tobacco Company. "My son had videoed some small bucks out of the stand, but we had no idea this buck was there."

On Saturday, Nov. 20, the opening day of the four-week gun season in Stokes County, Armstrong gave his son the choice of stands. "He'd hunted this stand so much and hadn't seen anything worth shooting, so he wanted to go somewhere else," he said. "It was the first time I'd hunted that stand."

Armstrong climbed into the box blind, which was built 22 feet off the ground in a pine tree. It was a rainy, foggy morning, and he didn't want to make noise by opening the windows before daylight, in case a squeaky hinge might spook a deer visiting the food plot of apples and corn that Armstrong had spread on the ground on the edge of the green patch.

"It had been light for about 15 minutes, and I raised one of the windows," he said. "I had unsnapped it and looked out, and here he came, right down the middle of the food plot. All I could see was horns."