"In Search of Mr. Big"
Written by Gary Mecham

Gary's buck is a 26 1/2" 6x8.

In 2001, I was the only one among myself, father, and brother, who was lucky enough to draw a muzzleloader tag for the Utah southern region. And though they didn't draw, they still tagged along to support and help me in my effort to locate and harvest a trophy buck.

The night before opening day, my dad and I found a buck right at dark that was approximately 35 inches wide and had points going everywhere. I would guess he had 8-10 points on each side! I got some video of him, but it was too dark and it didn't turn out very good.
As you probably guessed, that's where I started my hunt the next morning. We saw lots of nice 20 - 24-inch bucks, but no monsters. I hunted the same area for the next three days, and passed on some really nice bucks, but I wanted Mr. Big. On the fourth day of the hunt, I got a shot at a nice typical 29 incher, but missed. When I went to reload my gun, I noticed the hammer would not stay locked back. I tore it apart, and sure enough a small part in the lock had broken. Fortunately, I had brought my brothers gun along, just in case something like this happened.
I quickly familiarized myself with his gun that night, and wished I could have taken a couple of shots before morning, but it was too late that night. I thought I could take a couple of practice shots the next day after the morning hunt.

The fifth day put us back in the area where we had seen the monster. It wasn't long before deer started filtering up out of where they were feeding during the night. Several nice 20-24" bucks came past us that morning. A little later in the day, a real heavy buck with extra points started to make his way towards us. He wasn't the monster, but he was a pretty dang good buck. Being down to my backup gun, I decided to take a crack at him if I was offered the opportunity.

He kept coming right where we expected him to, and at about 50 yards I touched one off. He hit the ground like a ton of bricks, but almost as fast as he went down, he was up and running. I watched where he disappeared into the cedars, and then reloaded. After waiting a bit I worked my way over to where I had last seen him. He jumped up at about 50 yards and took off again, stopping at about 125 yards, giving me another shot. The second shot connected, and he was piled up just on the other side of the hill.
He ended up being 26 1/2" wide, 8 points on the left and 6 on the right.