Standing over the buck. Central Illinois hunter Rob Brennan and his father, Tom, knew this was a special moment. Before long, they were joined by Brennan's wife Tina, son Tyler and daughters Chelsea and Jenna. Aside from Rob's long-time hunting buddy, Mark Grites, the entire gang was there,

For nearly two full years. this group had kept the secret of the animal Brennan had dropped in its tracks with his Thompson/Center Encore.

CONT> There was no doubt that this was a special buck, and they were sharing a special moment. You see. Big Nasty, rightly named as such by Brennan's children, was the new world-record velvet buck and they all knew it. Brennan has just made deer hunting history

Makings of a World-Class Buck
As with any story featuring a record-class buck the hunter shares the spot light with his or her buck. No one will argue against this animal deserving a section of the story all to itself.

Big Nasty was shot at 4 p.m.. on Dec 1, 2006 I'm sure many who live and breath huge whitetails see a major flaw here. With the velvet shedding process occurring anywhere form lasted August to mid-September…, the date simply doesn’t fit. Still there he lay Dec 1, and the rack was still shrink-wrapped in velvet!

To understand how this is possible, one must first understand some of the dynamics behind antler development. The velvet that encases developing antlers with the blood and nutrients they require to grow. As the photo period shortens, a buck’s testicles increase their rate of testosterone production. In turn, the increased testosterone levels spur the velvet to die and antlers to harden, eventually creating the finished rack, the hunters are accustomed to seeing during the fall and winter months.

Big nasty suffered an injury that dramatically affected his antler development in more ways than one. Inspection of his scro­tum revealed that a freak injury had robbed him of one testicle and badly scarred the other. In essence, Big Nasty had the equiva­lent to one-half of a functioning testicle.

The evidence suggests that it still produced testosterone. However, because of the injury, it did so at a greatly reduced rate. The velvet on the rack had, indeed, died, but it probably suffered a very slow death that stretched on for a month or more. Be­cause of that, the velvet essentially shrink-wrapped itself to the rack.

In a basic sense, Big Nasty developed antlers like any other buck. He shed in winter or very early spring and developed the rack through spring and summer. The difference was that it took his velvet much longer to die. This may have provided him with more time to develop his rack and was undoubtedly what caused the shrink-wrapped effect.

His injury provided another significant advantage in developing impressive head gear. Big Nasty was incapable of impregnat­ing does. Also, because increased testos­terone levels play such huge role in rutting activities, he showed very minimal, if any, signs of engaging in rutting behavior.

The rut takes a heavy toll on a buck's body. Between fighting, breeding, search­ing for does and sign posting, a mature buck can lose 25 to 30 percent of his body weight during the rut.

In simple terms, once spring arrives, much of the energy a buck derives from its food is focused more toward building its body back up than into antler development. Typically, the surplus of high-quality spring forage and lazy lifestyle allows the body to recharge. Once that occurs, antler develop­ment can become a more primary focus. Along with age, genetics and the quality of forage, how healthy a buck enters spring plays a significant role in how many inches of antlers he'll sport in the coming fall.

Because Big Nasty engaged in little or no rutting activity, he didn't suffer the conse­quences of the rut. As a matter of fact, on Dec. 1, when most bucks are run-down, lean shells of their pre-rut selves, Big Nasty had over an inch and a half of fat layer­ing his back, all but guaranteeing that he was accustomed to entering spring in great physical condition.

Another factor in his favor was that, by putting out a network of food plots, Brennan made sure Big Nasty had all the high­protein food he required. "It helps that we have some of the richest soil in America," said Brennan. "That helps boost the protein content of plants. From my trail camera pic­tures, I know Big Nasty was feeding in my Biologic plots almost every night. He really loved the Green Patch Plus plot I had. Every picture I got of him was either feeding in it or traveling back and forth from it. He ate plenty of high-protein food."

One look at this 290 6/8-inch rack shows he also had genetics on his side. All that was left in the equation was age. A study of Big Nasty's teeth indicated that he was either 41/z or 51/z years old - he'd been given the chance to put some years under his belt. Add all of that together, and one can under­stand why he was in a class of his own.

The story of the hunt really begins when Brennan bought his first scouting camera in the spring of 2005. "I was excited to put out my new Penn's Woods scouting cam­era," Brennan recalled. "When I went back to check it, I was flipping through the im­ages on the camera's screen and couldn't believe what I saw. I went home and put the pictures on my computer.

"I picked up a couple more scouting cameras and used them to keep track of him," Brennan continued. "We had blue tongue pretty bad. That was my first wor­ries. Then, I started worrying that some­one would find out about him and poach him. Of course, during shotgun season, every shot I heard I was worried that someone shot him. Big Nasty caused me a lot of worries.

"The cameras helped keep me sane. I didn't want to scare him from the property. So, I only put the cameras in four different places. I'd set them out for three days and then yank them for three weeks or more. That worked to keep me from pressuring him too much and also let me know he was still alive."

Besides buying more cameras, Big Nasty also inspired Brennan to buy a muzzleload­er. "Almost as soon as I saw the first picture of him, I knew I had to buy a muzzleloader," Brennan explained. "I wanted to shoot Big Nasty bad and knew a good muzzleloader would shoot much farther than my shot­gun. I didn't want to risk seeing him at 200 yards with my shotgun and not be able to do anything about it. With the really big bucks, you are lucky to get one crack at them. That's why I went out and bought an Encore. I wanted to make sure I'd be able to take Big Nasty down if I saw him."

The 2005 bow season would be Brennan's first crack at what was then a 240­some-inch non typical version of Big Nasty. Armed with a PSE Durango, he hit the woods with a plan.

"I have two farms I hunt," said Brennan. "One is where Big Nasty lived. I wanted to be very careful there not to drive him off the farm. I hunt a lot, about three afternoons a week and then almost every weekend. To play it safe, I would only bow-hunt where Big Nasty lived three or four times a month, when all the conditions were perfect for him to move. I spent all the other days hunting the other farm.

"I really wanted to shoot Big Nasty," said Brennan. "I also knew that I may never see

 him once out hunting. When I was hunting the other farm and a 176/8 10-point with a drop tine came through, I had to put an arrow in him."

No sane hunter could blame Brennan for lowering his standards and taking that buck. After bow season, firearms season be­gan passed without a sign of Big Nasty.

That changed in 2006. Brennan's scouting camera pictures helped alleviate some of the worries that Big Nasty hadn't survived the hunting seasons and win­ter. Brennan became even more intent on shooting the buck. He and his son, Tyler, finally got their first sighting while walk­ing out after a bow-hunt.

"It was perfect," Brennan recalled. "He ran past us at 60 yards with his rack silhou­etted against the sky. There was no mistak­ing him. Because it was dark, we couldn't tell he had velvet on and still thought he just had a really dark rack. It was great to be able to share that with my son."

"Tyler shot his first deer with a bow, but that was the only time we saw Big Nasty. I shot a buck that had been wounded during the first shotgun season. When the second shotgun season came, all I had left was my muzzleloader tag." Since it's legal to use a muzzleloader tag in Illinois' second shotgun season, Brennan still had a chance.

Brennan and his father, Tom, run the fam­ily's parts store. To keep the doors open, they take turns hunting second season. Tom hunts the mornings and comes back

so Brennan can have the afternoon hunt. Neither saw Big Nasty the first Thursday of second season, and Tom struck out that Fri­day morning, as well.

That brings us to 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2006. "It was really cold, only l0 degrees, and the wind was blowing at 25 miles per hour,

said Brennan. "I knew my insulted Scent-Lok bibs and coat would help, but I had to get out of the wind or I'd freeze out after a couple hours. I was planning on hunting a different stand. The reason I went to the one I did was that it protected me bet­ter from the wind."

The stand Brennan chose offered two paths to success. From it, he could cover deer that came out to feed later in the af­ternoon. It also covered the deer that transitioned between several ravines and a tan­gled thicket.

At about 2 p.m., Brennan saw a group of 11 does make their way to the thicket. Be­lieving that either a buck could follow them or stir things up in the thicket helped con­vince him that he wasn't insane for hunting on such a unpleasant day.

"At 3:30, the does came back through and went into a picked cornfield to eat," re­called Brennan. "The deer kept piling into the corn. At about 4 p.m., an 8-point started messing with them. That's when the does got jumpy and something spooked them back over toward my stand. As they were running towards me, I put up the binocu­lars to see what had scared them. That's when I saw that it was Big Nasty. 

Brennan eats, breathes and lives deer hunt­ing. He's a very skilled hunter, and his fam­ily is very important to him. His reward was well-deserved, and when the reward is a buck like this, that says a lot!

As an added bonus, Brennan was every bit as excited that his son, Tyler, shot the 8-point he'd seen harassing the does two days later. The 2006 season was good t the Brennan family. Not only did Brennan shoot a world record, but he seemed even more proud of his 12-year-old son taking both his first bow and shotgun deer. For understatement of the century, the 20 season was not a bad season for the Brennan family at all.