Mike Brey of Oskaloosa, Kan., was happy as a lark when he shot this 19-pointer back in 1994, but his enthusiasm fizzled when he was told it netted around 150 by a B&C scorer. Thirteen years later, after the buck was measured for the BTR, his smile is even brighter than it was on the day he squeezed the trigger.

By Mike Handley

When Mike Brey returned to his truck on the morning of Dec. 9, 1994, he found a note.

"You're not welcome here," it read. "Your tag number will be given to the sheriff's department."

No big deal, he thought, tossing it on the front seat.

The then 37-year-old contractor was hunting legally on a 40-acre tract owned by a relative. He might've avoided the note if he'd parked in his cousin's yard, but he didn't want the dogs to follow him. So he'd pulled onto the shoulder of a public road. The neighbors, at least one of them, didn't care for hunters.

No problem. He wouldn't need to park there for another year, because his tag was punched. Did you hear that, world? 

HIS TAG WAS PUNCHED!

And all because of a gadget his buddies persuaded him to buy.

Mike had never cared much for still-hunting. Usually, deer season was a time for friends to gather and stage man-drives. It was a weekend activity; something to do before football games on weekends and holidays, as long as there were a few takers.

The size of a buck's antlers meant almost nothing to Mike. All he wanted to be able to do was say, "I got my deer."

Deer meant buck, and that was all that counted.

The '94 season was different. While getting acquainted with family land, which he'd never hunted, Mike found some very large tracks prior to the season. He'd even seen a great buck while scouting, and he couldn't stop thinking about its rack.
The parcel is about 80 percent wooded and surrounded by soybean and grass fields. It's not far from the Perry Lake public hunting ground in Jefferson County, and both are surrounded by tracts that aren't hunted at all Ñ their owners generally opposed to the practice.

Mike had decided to do a little hunting before work that morning. Dressed in denim jeans and shirt and wearing a brown Carhartt jacket to ward off the cold wind, he was backed up against a deadfall beside a fence by 6:15, cradling his open-sighted .30-30. From that vantage point, he could watch the convergence of several deer trails.

Around 8:45 -- past the time he normally would've hunted on a workday -- he saw a deer slipping through the woods about 35 or 40 yards away. Knowing that if it kept going he wouldn't get a shot, Mike borrowed a technique his pals had advocated, though he was skeptical.

Almost feeling silly, he dug out his brand new mail-order grunt call and blew it. He didn't know if he sounded like a deer or not.

But whether Mike nailed the vocalization or sounded more like a 500-pound gorilla where a 500-pound gorilla wasn't supposed to be, the buck stopped. The surprised rifleman never took the time to scrutinize the rack before squeezing the trigger.

"Without that noise from my call, it would've been over," Mike said. "The grunt call was my first. Based on recommendations from friends, although I wasn't sure I believed them, I'd ordered it through a Gander Mountain catalog."

The shot was on target.

"It's kind of a nothing story," he admitted. "There was no drama; nothing like you read in magazines. The buck just kicked over and died."

When Mike got his first up-close look at the monstrous whitetail, he almost kicked over and died himself. A simple "I got my deer" wouldn't begin to do this rascal justice. It was going to a taxidermist.

"That's the only deer I've taken in my life that was actually bigger than I thought it was when I shot," he said.

Mike didn't have to worry about being late for work. He was the boss. So he called his co-boss, partner Alan Bender, to ask for help. The two men dragged the deer about 150 yards before they could load it in the truck.

Editor's Note: When I went to Mike Brey's home near Oskaloosa, Kan., to score this buck, it was hanging in a basement alcove no bigger than a broom closet. He'd had it measured by a Boone-and-Crockett scorer many moons ago, who chose to tape it as a typical vs. non-typical. After deductions, the rack netted somewhere between 140 and 150 inches -- well short of the B&C minimum. For the next 13 years, Mike thought he had a 150-class buck. And since it wasn't a "Booner," he decided not to press his wife into letting him hang the mount in the house (at least upstairs). At first glance, I knew it would top 200 inches with the inside spread included. And it did: 206 5/8. Even without the 19 2/8-inch spread, the impressive rack tallies 187 3/8, which is about 40 inches more than it registered by B&C's yardstick. Mike was thrilled. His wife less so. It's not often that a buck's bottom line will be higher with the BTR than with B&C, but it happens more often than most people realize. In fact, it happened to Mike Brey a second time in 2002. The story of that deer will appear in the next issue of this magazine.

BTR Score: 187 3/8

-- Mike Handley