You can imagine that as editor of a statewide hunting andfishing publication, I see my share of big buck photos. And over the course of my newspaper career I've always been a hands-on kind of editor, so I manage to grab a camera with some regularity still and snap a few shots of big deer, big fish and turkeys.

Sometimes – usually during spring gobbler season – I even end up on the other side of the camera. But it sure hasn't happened for me this deer season, as I've struggled to fill a tag and, even as I write this, am planning to jump out this afternoon in an effort to find a buck. At this point in the season, any buck. They're all trophies now as the next-to-last weekend of the firearms season winds down.  

Things have, however, been heating up in the deer woods, as they always seem to do when the temperatures drop and the bucks are on the prowl for willing does. Some of the best bucks of the season are killed later rather than sooner, and that seems to be the case again this year. 

While I've been beating my head against an oak tree trying to find a buck, the stories keep rolling in all around me. A friend connecting on a big-bodied seven-pointer (5 on one side and 2 on the other) way back inthe high country of the Lake Placid and Whiteface regions, necessitating agrueling, 8-hour drag out of the woods that wasn't completed until the following morning. A neighbor scoring on a fine 8-point not far from where I'd been hunting, filling his tag while I was 300 miles away for the Southern Zone opener. Another friend who, home from college for the Thanksgiving holiday, finally got out and in the first hour of his hunt downed a beautiful 10-pointer that will likely score in the 150s. Sometimes it happens that way. I'm trying to convince myself it could happen to me later today. 

And just as there are big-racked whitetails in the high country, there are also corn-fed beauties along Lake Champlain and in the Schroon Lake Region, in spots like the sprawling Pharoah Lake Wilderness Area. 

Even on Thanksgiving Day itself, I was pressed into duty –with pleasure – with news of Jesse Napper's spectacular 11-point buck, the first ever for the 16-year-old. 

It started harmlessly enough; I was working cleanup duty at a church dinner when his aunt arrived with news that her nephew had killed a big buck. She even had a photo of it on her digital camera. 

When she showed me, I wasn't sitting down. I should have been. It wasn't just a "big buck." This one was something special, a big-bodied, heavy-racked, long-tined monster that weighed in at a field-dressed189 pounds and will almost assuredly score in the 150s when someone puts a tape measure to the massive rack. 

I had to see this one myself, and hustled up the road to the farmhouse the hunters had gathered. This was a big deal for any hunter, but especially for a 16-year-old tagging his first buck. I made sure he was aware of that, even driving back home to fetch a couple of cameras for a photo session, then listening to him re-tell the story of his Thanksgiving morning success. You'll see a photo and story in an upcoming issue of New York Outdoor News. 

I didn't have to ask Jesse to smile for the camera. 

And who knows? Deer-hunting lightning can strike at anytime up here. Some big bucks are still out there. 

Maybe I'll need someone to take my picture.