by Silas Crowley

It's still common to find deer hunters in Florida who feel like their only hope for killing a trophy whitetail involves going out of state. If they only hunt public land, that may be true.

Some hunters already know and others are learning every season that given the right conditions, namely letting some bucks get older and providing good habitat, Florida can produce some awfully big bucks each season. Some of these bucks rival their counterparts growing just across the state line in south Alabama and Georgia.

It's been a few years, but I'll never forget the call from a Holmes County man one fall day telling me I'd be sorry if I didn't come look at his son's deer. Skeptical, I grabbed a camera and drove to his house, but I wasn't disappointed. There, I saw one of the largest whitetails I had ever seen, a massive 10-point that weighed 233 pounds. It took three grown men to get the deer out of the woods and into a truck bed.

Each year Florida produces some extraordinary deer. In this issue of Florida Game & Fish, we're going to look at the top two typical and non-typical bucks taken in the state during the 2001-02 season and the stories behind how they were taken.

Gary Borland proved that South Florida has some good bucks when he downed this 155 2/8 B&C buck in Martin County last year. Photo courtesy of Gary Borland

Even more amazing is the rack's symmetrical shape. The rack has the fewest deductions I've ever seen on any whitetail rack, from Florida or elsewhere. It had a gross score of 157 4/8, with just 2 2/8 inches of deductions. The brow tines measured just over 4 inches each, and the second, third and fourth points on each side were nearly matched, with lengths of just over 8, 10 and 8 inches, respectively.

Borland took his deer to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) wildlife check station, and a biologist aged the animal at 6 1/2 years old, an age when bucks generally are in their peak physical condition.

It's common to see 5 1/2- and 6 1/2-year-old bucks with 12 points, and in some cases 14 points. It's just conjecture, but had Borland's deer had a couple of more points, it could have pushed the state record whitetail and easily wound up in the list of the top four or five all-time deer from the state. All the coffee shop speculation aside, Borland is justifiably proud of his accomplishment during the 2001-02 season.

Gary Borland makes him home in Jupiter, on the state's southeast coast. While he loves to hunt, he makes his living working in a bait and tackle shop selling fishing gear and dispensing advice to anglers. He's also a recreational fishing guide. In the fall, however, he makes an effort to spend some time in the nearby deer woods.

Martin County is southeast of Lake Okeechobee and borders St. Lucie County on the north, Palm Beach County to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. Truthfully, there are more opportunities here for fishing than for hunting, but there are still many privately owned farms or cattle operations that provide some deer hunts.

It was on such a 4,000-acre farm that Borland and his good friend John Lang were hunting Nov. 25, 2001. Lang, a local landscape design architect, dropped Borland off before daylight in a promising spot. The area was a mixture of tall pines, scrub brush underneath and occasional pockets of cypress. Borland decided to locate in a stand that he had hunted several times during the archery season. The setup looked great but had yet to give up a good buck. At the most, he could only see 80 to 90 yards.

"The first thing I did was put out some deer scent on a bush out in front of my stand," he said. "I believe in that stuff. I've always had good luck with it."

Borland barely had time to get settled in his tree stand when, in the early morning light, he saw movement off to his right. A big doe, completely unaware of his presence, began feeding, pausing occasionally to look around.

"It was just one of those things where you get the feeling there's something else out there. I slowly looked to my left, and that's when I spotted him," Borland said. "He stopped once or twice but went straight to the (scent)."

Borland said he had only a few seconds to look at the deer but knew immediately the buck was a "shooter."

"I knew he was big, but I didn't realize just how big he was," he added.

Word spread quickly about his deer and he's had to tell the story countless times to interested customers and friends. He only found out after the fact that a fellow hunter had apparently seen this deer a year earlier but didn't get off a shot. For that, he was grateful.

It was only fitting that the day Borland decided to treat himself to a day off work and a hunting trip with his close friend was his birthday, Nov. 25. It was a birthday he won't soon forget.

Even though he was born and raised in the Orlando area, Collins hunted very little in Orange County and surrounding public areas when he was growing up. Instead, he did most of his hunting with family members near Jacksonville and Green Cove Springs.

Collins' interest in deer hunting really increased when he was serving in the U.S. Army in 1991 at Fort Stewart, Ga. There were lots of deer on the base, and he hunted every chance he had during his two-year stint. He killed several deer while he was there, including respectable 8- and 10-pointers, but they were small compared to the buck he harvested last New Year's Day.

Collins has several relatives who live in Jackson County, including his uncle Tony Collins in Marianna and a grandfather in Grand Ridge. Tony is in a club that has a hunting lease in the county and extended an invitation to Dale and a buddy from Orlando to come hunt.

The leased area consists of half a dozen tracts of land, with some mostly wooded and others a mixture of woods and fields. The first day of hunting, Saturday Dec. 29, was cold and breezy. Dale hunted from a shooting house that morning in a field dubbed "40 Acres," and while he didn't see any deer, he couldn't help but notice how many fresh tracks marked the muddy field. That afternoon he hunted the same area and, since he a doe permit, dropped a fat doe just before sundown.

Collins hunted the same general area on Sunday. Though he didn't see a buck, he spotted a number of does. What he didn't see during the day, however, proved more important. As a cousin drove in to the field after sundown to pick up Collins, the headlights flashed across a huge buck that quickly disappeared into cover.

Armed with that information, Dale was back early Monday morning. From his vantage point, which was near Interstate 10, he could cover a field on one side with waist-high dog fennels and broomsedge and a fallow field next to it. Though cars and trucks zipped by in the distance, he guessed that from all the tracks the deer paid the traffic no attention.

After a few hours of stand-hunting, he got down for some stalking. Out of nowhere, a nice 7-pointer ran behind a dirt pile more than 50 yards down the field, then bolted across the open area in full stride. With a U.S. Army veteran who prided himself on marksmanship on the scene, that was a huge mistake for the buck to make. Collins fired one time with his .30-06, and although the buck ran another 50 yards, it then collapsed in a heap.

With two whitetails now to his credit, Dale was unsure where to hunt on Tuesday, but his uncle encouraged him to go back to the same field. It turned out to be great advice.

As the sun began to rise New Year's morning, Collins was sitting on a log that was surrounded by bushes. Being a strong believer in the use of deer scent, Dale had put out some of his favorite. He didn't have long to wait for it to get results.

About 6:20 a.m. he looked out in front of him, and a huge-racked buck walked out of a patch of trees and brush. The animal had its head down as it moved into an open area. The rutting buck made a fatal mistake by stopping at a distance of 110 yards.

If there's a footnote to Collins' hunt, it's the satisfaction he got after returning home and entering his deer in a big buck contest sponsored by a local taxidermist in the small town of Ocoee. While area hunters entered deer from all over Florida and some from Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, his 12-pointer took top honors!

Peeples' buck had 12 antler points and an incredible 25-inch outside spread. The inside spread measurement was 16 7/8 inches. His deer was basically a very large 8-point with two abnormal points on each antler.

Ironically, it was the same deer Forrest believes Justin missed during the 2000-01 season.

Forrest began hunting this area of North Florida when he was a young boy. He bagged his first deer at the tender of age of 8, and life has never been the same since. He's killed enough deer over the intervening years "for their antlers to fill the bed of a pickup truck."

As a result, he is committed to hunting in the Sunshine State.

"I've hunted in Texas and saw some nice deer, but that was a bust," Peeples said. "I went with some friends to this place in Alabama where they were supposed to have all these big deer, and we didn't do anything. We've got bigger deer right here near the house than what I saw hunting those other places."

Another facet of Forrest's sport is that, although he does hunt with firearms, he is more at home when bowhunting. It's a skill he's teaching to Justin and apparently doing a good job. At the age of 13, Justin has already killed seven deer with his bow and arrow. In 1992 Forrest arrowed a huge 8-point, and while he's come close on some others, that is his best archery buck to date.

It was during the 2000-01 firearms season on their Putnam County tract that Justin missed what Forrest thinks was the trophy buck. Forrest hunted the buck again several times later but never caught another glimpse of him.

Then the big 12-pointer's demise was set in motion last season when Forrest and a friend decided to sight-in their muzzleloaders just prior to archery season.

"We walked up to this field where we were going to shoot and saw a couple of does and one of the biggest bucks I had ever seen, but I think he saw us because he eased out of the field and disappeared," Peeples explained.

The buck became an obsession with Forrest during the archery season. Day after day, Forrest slipped in to his Putnam County property, climbed into a tree stand and waited. He kept a detailed logbook that shows he logged 85 hours perched in various stands. Most of the time was spent in one particular oak tree waiting for this deer.

"I had the chance to shoot a bunch of does and some smaller bucks, but I waited," Peeples said.

Something that worked against him during the bow season was the prevailing wind, which always seemed to be blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean from behind him.

With the firearms season in full swing, Forrest and Justin went hunting early on Nov. 21 but wanted to be home by midmorning for a Thanksgiving trip to Bonifay in Holmes County. A few minutes after 7 a.m., Forrest and Justin looked down the field and saw eight does come out to feed. The dream buck also appeared, pursuing them. The big buck was in full rut and oblivious to anything else going on around him.

"I want to shoot him. I want to shoot him," Justin told his dad, but Forrest knew at 250 yards and without a support for his rifle the boy didn't stand a chance.

Crawling up to a nearby tree and steadying his gun on a limb, the elder Peeples waited until the buck cleared the does and turned broadside. It took only one round from his .270 and he had his deer.

"You'll never believe it, but after running 40 or 50 yards he fell directly under that oak tree I'd hunted in so many hours with my bow," Forrest mused.

Their idea of an early morning hunt and early departure to the Panhandle fell by the wayside as word spread and hunter after hunter came by to see his buck-of-a-lifetime and hear the story repeated. In fact, the family trip did not get under way until 5 p.m. that afternoon!