"He went on and stopped right at the edge of the field -- there was a scrape right there in the general area," he said. "I said to myself, That deer's got horns, and I got the safety off, took aim and dropped him with one shot, right in the chest."

Haynes' shot was true, which was another story in itself. "I had a problem with my gun, a CVA, and they recalled it," he said. "The factory told me that if they sent it back, they'd send me a new one, and they sent me a Hunter Pro Magnum. We zeroed it in three shots; it shot real good. I was really happy with it."

Haynes had a Tasco scope on the muzzleloader and was shooting a .50-caliber, 240-grain bullet in a sabot. Shot through the shoulders, the buck never moved.

"I waited about 30 minutes before I got down -- I said a little prayer while I was up there," he said. "I couldn't tell how big he was that far off, but when I got down to him, I could tell he was nice. I'd killed a big 6-pointer before that was about the same size, as far as the weight, but not with those kind of horns."

To describe the rack on Haynes' buck as unique might be doing it a disservice. The buck had an extremely tall, 10-point rack that was tremendously symmetrical but very narrow. The inside spread was 14 3/4 inches, but whatever that lacked was more than made up for by extremely tall tines. The back tines on both antlers measured exactly 13 inches, and the next set of tines on both sides measured 10 1/2 inches.

"His horns were just about perfect," Haynes said. "You see so many horns that don't register -- ones that are broken off -- but mine had a perfect set. My son was really enthused. He encouraged me to go on with it."

It didn't take much encouragement for Adam Whitt of Mebane to go trophy hunting during archery season last fall. Unlike Hayes and Armstrong, he knew exactly what he was up against and what he was after.

"I had seen him the previous year, twice during gun season," said Whitt, a 25-year-old building materials salesman. "The first time I saw him was on a rainy, ugly day, and I was pulling into a farm I've got leased. I was in the truck, and I saw what I thought was a deer on the edge of the woods, but I decided it was unbelievable -- it couldn't be a deer. But about the time I got 100 yards from him, he jumped back in the woods and took off.

"Then, I saw him a second time, in about the same spot, when I was in a tree stand almost at the end of the season, in late December. He came out, chasing a doe, showing every sign of rutting. He was chasing the fire out of that doe, and I didn't really want to risk a shot at him 150 to 200 yards away."

Instead, Whitt got ready for the opening of the 2004 archery season. "I had seen some big deer from past years, so I know about where they come out in this field during bow season, and I set up a stand up there," he said. "I had a climbing stand, and I had it up about 20 feet in a small hardwood tree on the edge of the field with pines all around, so I had some good cover.

The afternoon of opening day, Sept. 11, Whitt got to his stand in plenty of time and got up. With about 20 minutes of legal shooting light left, Whitt noticed three deer entering the field, a long distance away.

"He came out with two other bucks, about 200 or 250 yards away from me, into the field," Whitt said. "There was standing corn still in the field that the farmer hadn't cut yet, and the other two bucks made their way across to the corn.