“On Dec. 30, my wife, my father and I went to Oakmulgee,” Perry recounted. “My wife was in a tree about 100 yards from me. I heard her shoot at 7:20. Then at 8:00, in the fog, I saw a buck rubbing a tree about 125 or 130 yards away. He stepped up, I shot and he took off running. I thought, ‘Not again,’ but a minute or so later, I thought I heard crashing.”

He went to his wife’s tree at about 11:00. She had killed a spike. Then they tracked his deer.

“He had only gone 20 yards,” Perry said. “He was a 9-pointer that scored 140 6/8.”

Oddly enough, Perry was hunting within 200 yards of where his brother, Matt, had killed an 18-pointer that scored 181 B&C points several seasons earlier.

While hunting from his lucky tree at Sam R. Murphy WMA on Jan. 5, 2006, Perry got a bonus animal -- a bobcat. He also got a 3 1/2-year-old 9-pointer that was the 13th deer he’d harvested from the tree. He viewed the bobcat as a trophy and got it mounted.

The very next day, on Jan. 6, he drove to Oakmulgee and hunted the same tree where he’d taken the big 9-pointer. He killed a 6 1/2 year-old 8-pointer.

“He was a nice deer, but you could tell he was going downhill,” Perry said. “He scored about 115.”

With the last two weeks of the season coming up, it was time for Perry to start hunting his favorite late season haunt.

“It was Jan. 14 at Wolf Creek when I got the biggest body-weight deer I’d ever gotten -- a 190-pound 6-point,” Perry said. “I got him at 7:56 in the morning. I was in a good area, a high ridge with a real thick bedding area. I like to hunt the trails that come off the ridge going to a nearby creek bottom. I’ve been hunting this place three or four years.”

He had a “dry spell” after that and didn’t take another deer until Jan. 27, again at Wolf Creek.

“It was a 3 1/2 year old with a big, thick beam, but one side was broke off,” he said. “It should have been an eight.”

The real oddity from the entire season was that Perry’s 62-year-old dad had accompanied him nearly every time he had hunted, with the elder Perry setting up fairly close to his son.

“He didn’t kill one deer,” Michael Perry said. “But I don’t know that he really wanted to. I think he was just going to be with me.”

The land is there for the hunting, and you too can be a public-land buck wizard if you’re willing to go the distance with the diligence and tenacity of a Michael Perry.

“The number of people hunting the WMAs has dropped off,” he explained. “I believe that makes for some older-class deer.”

Perry studies maps of his hunting areas. He wants to know where the green fields are, even though he doesn’t hunt them.

“I like to look for thick areas with trails,” he stated. “The off season -- February and turkey season -- is when I see the most sign. I find a lot of my places to hunt while turkey hunting.”

He takes a compass and some supplies in case he has to spend the night in the big woods.

“You can’t be scared of the woods and find bucks,” he mused.

He also recommended that you get on a first-name basis with the wildlife biologists in charge of the various WMAs. “They can steer you to some places to check out,” he offered.

Perry has a camper on the back of his truck and he lives in it for a few days if he can when he goes on a WMA hunt. But he sometimes also drives all the way to Oakmulgee and hunts a half-day if that’s all he can squeeze in.