For Ben Knisley, a "good" deer season is defined by how much time he's able to spend in the woods with family and friends. Filling a tag always comes second to the young Minnesotan, and he's not picky when opportunity knocks.

The 2006 season was good on both counts. Not only did Ben shoot a buck (a serious understatement), but he also got to share the hunt with his Uncle Dick.

Ben rolled out of the sack before sunrise on Nov. 4, eager to hunt the family farm he'd prowled since he was a kid. He was greeted by bitter cold, not unusual for that time of year in Minnesota.

He hunted hard all morning, checking all the spots where he had seen deer in years past. The deer, however, were nowhere to be seen. Around noon, Ben decided to leave and grab a bite to eat. He also was ready for a change of scenery for his afternoon hunt.

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I started hunting deer in 1963, and I've had a Nebraska permit every year since, except for the four years I served in the Air Force. Even then, the two years I was stationed in Cheyenne, Wyo., I was able to hunt elk, deer and antelope.

The deer I bagged in 2007, my best in 44 years, was no stranger to me. Nor did it surprise my son, Tom, and granddaughter, Whitney Pfister. Those two saw the buck in 2006 while hunting along what we call the hedgerow. They were hunkered inside a blind in the tall CRP grass until about 9 a.m.

While walking back to the truck, they spotted this buck in my cornfield. Nobody ever saw it again that year. My guess was that it had wound up in someone's Deepfreeze.

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New deer hunters would trade big woods serenity and fresh air for the ambient noise of a nearby highway and a breeze tainted by diesel fumes. But one bowhunter from Fort Wayne, Ind., has learned that aesthetics have little to do with one's chances of taking home a buck.

Wayne Leazier Jr. logs a lot of miles each fall in his quest for whitetails, mostly between home and southern Michigan. Give him a few days, and he's going to watch his odometer spin en route to the deer woods. Give him a few hours, however, and he's going to find a way to hunt much closer to home.

That's what happened back in October 2005. Faced with a drizzly afternoon that didn't involve masonry or construction, Wayne set out for a friend's place in his own Allen County, a 150- to 200-yard wide strip of timber so thick it would've made beagles turn tail and run.

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The first time that Robbie Heyes encountered a real Massachusetts wallhanger, back in 2003, a misfire rained on the 20-year-old's parade. The following year, it was indeed the rain, not his deer gun, which doused the young man.

The misfire came when Robbie was slipping quietly through a swamp. He'd unknowingly wandered within 30 feet of a bedded 10-pointer. When it rose and tried to sneak away, Robbie shouldered his muzzleloader, braced for the blast and squeezed the trigger.

Instead of a boom, however, he heard only a soft click. The gun never went off, but the buck did.

"I thought about it all the time after that," Robbie said. "Every time we hunted in that area, I went to that spot -- my favorite -- and thought about that day."

The following year, Robbie planned his vacation around the December shotgun season so that he and his dad, Don, could hunt every day.

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My 2005 bow season got off to a very slow start. By Thursday, Nov. 9, two days before Indiana opened the doors to shotgunners, I'd seen nothing of note. Sure, I'd watched a lot of small deer: does, button bucks and about a dozen adolescent bucks. I was even starting to name them.

I had seen some of the same deer so often and so close that I could have jumped out of the tree and landed on them. My favorites were Moe, Larry and Curly. And then there was Abbott and Costello, a pair of 7-pointers who might have been twins.

The deer I was looking for, though, was named Ziggy. That was the nickname my friends and I had used, year after year, for the most dominant buck in the area.

Since Indiana law changed to allow the taking of only one buck per year, I was holding out for a good one, a "Ziggy," so to speak.

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After a long hiatus from hunting, I decided to give bowhunting a try back in 2000. I'd taken several deer with a shotgun as a teenager.

Since most of the places I had access to hunt were at least an hour from my home in Hartville, Ohio, I sought permission from local farmers. After half a dozen unsuccessful tries, I finally met a gentleman kind enough to allow me on his 80 acres, after the hunters who usually hunted there didn't show.

When the '01 season opened, I was confident that I'd tag my first deer with a bow. I'd come to know the property through scouting and had found the perfect place for a stand, about 30 yards from multiple creek crossings between a bedding area and a soybean field. After hunting there the first four weeks and seeing only a few does, however, I decided a move was in order.

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Whenever my husband, Steve, gets the urge to go hunting, he doesn't have to go far. We live in rural Greenfield, Ill., on 37 acres. When the season is in, all he has to do is fire up the tractor and drive to the elevated stand he calls his "tree house."

That's exactly what he did during the November 2006 gun season, all three days. On Friday, he saw only does and yearlings. They were restless, often looking over their shoulders to check their backtrails. But Steve never saw the bucks he envisioned would come.

He didn't have time to go out again that afternoon. He and I run a home-based scheduling service for American Airlines flight attendants who work out of the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. He spent the rest of the day working on their December schedules.

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Bob Cuozzo of Pine City, N.Y., began hunting deer when he was 12 years old in northern Pennsylvania. Leading up to the 2006 season, he'd bagged 53 bucks, everything from spikes to 10-pointers.

Last year's season was his best, even if he'd never ventured afield on Dec. 6. Early on, while hunting in Pennsylvania with his dad's bolt-action .308, he shot an 11-pointer - his biggest ever!

But not for long.

In preparation for New York's southern zone shotgun season, Bob sighted-in his new bolt-action shotgun with just four shots. After such a productive shooting session with his new deer gun, he was confident in his shooting ability for shot No. 5.

Bob hunts in the vast Region 8, one of the state's top deer zones. Western New York continues to lead the state in deer harvest densities. The county where Bob hunts yielded 1,232 bucks in 2006, or three bucks per square mile. One of those was Bob's. Bob's spirit was still soaring from his 11-point Pennsylvania buck when the New York season opened. The first week, during which he babysat stands within a QDM unit, was a bust. His game plan changed for the second week.

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Story by Troy Seidel (As told by Lane Johnson)

BTR Score: 179

Photo: Lane Johnson and his friends might have unwillingly donated their venison to the coyotes in Saskatchewan last fall, but the three amigos left the province with three sets of antlers. Lane took the largest back home to North Dakota.

October 2006 marked the second time I'd hunted with Jim Lake Outfitters in Saskatchewan. It was my friend Don's 15th journey across the border for a week of goose and deer hunting.

The plan was to join friends on the decoyed fields in the mornings, and then finish our days in deer stands -- me and another buddy, Lynn, with muzzleloaders and Don with his bow.

My first stint was in a ground blind beside an alfalfa field. After seeing only a couple of does, I became restless and decided to stalk my way back to the drop-off point. En route, I took cover alongside some alfalfa bales and glassed for deer in the adjoining fields.

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Jimmy Ray Eppley, at the young age of 15, feels like he is a seasoned hunter. Having hunted since age 7 and harvesting sufficient venison to feed the family at least twice per month for the last six seasons, he is a proud young man.

His first deer in 1999 was a 5-pointer, followed in 2002 by a 7-pointer (with a 17 1/2-inch inside spread). In 2004, he shot an 8-pointer. And he’s taken several does in between. None of these, however, will be as fondly remembered as the ’05 season’s bounty.

“I thought it was a big 10-pointer, but I couldn’t see it clearly,” Jimmy admitted. “I had a hole the size of a quarter and only a neck shot. I squeezed the trigger, and, even in the smoke, I could see the tail twitching. I knew I got it!”

Jimmy left his rifle and ran to the deer lying in the small creek.

“After that, I just ran back to the truck to get my Grandpa, but I couldn’t find him. So I got a knife and ran back to the deer, but it was GONE!” he added.

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On Sept. 16, opening morning of Minnesota’s archery season, Al Schmidt, Paul Appicelli, Clarence Bautch and I met long before sunrise by the old schoolhouse. We then separated and headed for our chosen positions.

It took me nearly half an hour of noisily thrashing through the forest to find my treestand. Needless to say, I did not see or hear any deer that morning. But Al and his daughter, Morgan, shot and dressed out a nice buck.

After church the next morning, we set out again. The three of us were soon aloft in trees, spread out over a heavily wooded valley between the steep bluffs of southeastern Minnesota.

After an hour of listening to the sounds of the woods and reading a new book, Steve Chapman’s “A Look at Life from a Tree Stand,” I was startled by the sound of deer on the move. Somewhere directly behind me was the distinct pattern of hooves meeting leaves. Acorns had been falling and squirrels rustling, but this was different. It had the all-too-familiar cadence.

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The third week of October 2006, one of my trail cameras photographed a huge mainframe 10-pointer with matching sticker points off the bases, making it a 6x6. The buck was living on or at least passing through the farm I knew better than any of the places I hunt.

I had tromped around that farm ever since I was old enough to walk.

I discussed strategies with my dad, and we agreed that my best chance of tagging it would be before the rut. If the buck got hooked up with a doe, there was no telling how far it might wander.

I knew I had to hunt this deer smarter than any other I'd hunted. This was going to be tough. I knew if it caught my scent one time, the game was probably over for me.

I decided not to bother this deer until the wind was absolutely perfect. It would take a northwest wind to hunt this particular farm. I tell you, it was hard not visiting this place, knowing what was there. But I knew I couldn't until the time was right. I just hoped the time would come soon.

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