When John Dudley was a kid, still learning how to hunt in Illinois, he had an encounter with a big buck that changed the trajectory of his bowhunting life. Dudley was hunting with a compound bow that ...

That 164-inch velvet 8-pointer looked like an extinct Irish elk as he stepped out of the cedar thicket. His rack swayed back and forth as he scanned the landscape. My first hunt for that giant buck ...