Tony Spriggs placed his faith in his guide and weathered a storm to slam this book musk ox, just missing the world record by a mere quarter-inch.

"My son and I were just walking along a hillside and my dad was about 500 yards uphill when he bumped a bull elk. It came down the hill and stopped at about 215 yards to look back at my dad," he says. "I could tell it was pretty good."

Degelbeck spent plenty of time shooting at long distances with his muzzleloader and was comfortable at ranges out to 200 yards. This time, he didn't have a bench to rest on. In an instant, he threw up his gun, found the bull in the crosshairs of his 1X scope and squeezed the trigger. After the smoke drifted away, Degelbeck saw the bull take a few steps and fall over. The 295-grain bullet punched through both lungs and clipped a portion of the heart--a perfect shot.

Admitting that he was simply in the right place at the right time, Doug Degelbeck anchored the biggest typical elk ever taken with a muzzleloader with a careful shot that was a touch over 200 yards.

The bull not only took top honors in its category at the 26th Big Game Awards Banquet, it turned out to be the biggest typical American elk ever taken with a muzzleloader. Still, Degelbeck admits that he was simply in the right place at the right time.

Suburban Legend
So does Brad Jerman. Although he has recounted the story of his massive whitetail buck dozens of times, he tells it with as much enthusiasm and excitement as the day he arrowed the monster deer--no wonder. The 10-pointer he killed that day turned out to be the new Ohio record and the largest buck ever taken with a crossbow.

Andrew Seman’s used his .280 Remington to drop this 733 pound, 233⁄16 inch Pennsylvania black bear. It turned out to rank third overall, and took the top spot for a hunter-killed black bear.

Jerman doesn't consider himself a trophy hunter. He's more concerned about filling his freezer with venison than with putting antlers on his living room wall. Still, he won't pass up the opportunity to take a big buck, and based on his history, he's had plenty of chances. On this day, Jerman expected to take a doe with his crossbow, a hunt he planned on capturing on film. The Springboro, Ohio, resident was hunting a four-acre parcel of land within a mixture of housing developments and small farms, perfect habitat for growing a monster buck. As he was shooting footage of a group of does late in the evening he heard a noise behind him.

"I swung the camera around and saw this set of antlers through the viewfinder. They were unbelievable," he says. "I could barely hold the camera still."

He did, however, for forty-five seconds as the massive buck walked through an opening beyond the range of his crossbow before it slipped into the trees late in the evening. Jerman wasn't sure what to do next. He actually considered staying in his stand all night out of fear of spooking the buck if he got down and walked out.