Matt’s had his first up-close-and-personal encounter with the buck when he and Paula were trailing her buck in 2004 and they jumped the big 8-pointer. According to Matt, the buck looked huge even back then. And the following year was when the buck started showing up on trail camera photos.

Matt had his second close encounter during the third week in October 2005. “He came in to a food plot and I shot and nicked the top of his back,” he said. “I was devastated.”

The next encounter Matt had with Long Tines was exactly one year later, to the day, in 2006.

“I drew on him when he came in,” Matt said, “and it was really windy. He got to about 21 yards and stopped, looked around, and turned ends. He walked away and started rubbing a tree, and then walked off into the brush. I never got a shot.”

The game with this buck was on -- and Matt wanted to play more than anything. He hunted every day except Sundays until his luck changed that foggy morning of Nov. 6.

“Just about daylight I heard two bucks fighting really aggressively down in the creek,” Matt remembered. “And about 15 minutes later I saw a big-bodied deer walk up out of the creekbed. I put the binoculars on him and saw those long G-2s and knew it was him.”

The buck was angling toward Matt’s stand and a drip bag he’d placed in a tree. A trail led through the shelterbelt that Matt hoped the buck would take. “I kept looking up in the air and looking away because I was getting so terribly nervous,” Matt said of his buck fever. “It seemed like his tines were almost as high as my stand was.”

The deer closed to less than 15 yards and Matt tried to draw but the deer stopped. Undeterred, the buck continued toward the scrape and Matt got to full draw. The buck stopped again at about 11 yards and Matt was able to get off a shot.

“He took off really fast and ran about 70 yards but started slowing down when he got out of sight,” Matt said. “I heard a crash and thought he was down but he walked back out into the field. I grabbed my binoculars and fogged them up. I put them down to clean them and by the time I got them back up he was down.”

Staying in his stand another 15 minutes, Matt called his wife, dad and sister. “It was unreal,” Matt said of the feeling when they all walked up to Long Tines. “I dreamed I might get him some day, but after the close encounters and not getting him I wasn’t too sure.”

Long Tines scored 162 3/8 inches in the typical category of the Boone and Crockett records as an 8-pointer.

Both Paula and Matt are complimentary of each other, and there’s no real sibling rivalry. They both share a passion for bowhunting, and each wishes the other well.

“We’re all out there to have a good time and we’re all in it together,” Matt said. “During those two weeks after I drew on Long Tines and didn’t get a shot and didn’t see him, Paula helped me stay focused because I started doubting if I’d ever get a chance at him.”

They each understand they’ve been fortunate to take such magnificent animals. Paula realizes she may never top her 2005 buck, but looks forward to spending more time in the field with her father and brother.

“I’m excited about another year of hunting,” she said recently. “I guess one hunter can’t have too many blessings like that in one lifetime, so it’s pretty special.”