While seeing his boys take such topnotch deer ranks among his best-ever hunting memories, the old man was not to be outdone: A week and a half after the boys got their bucks, Rick killed a nice 10-pointer on private land in Marshall County -- and like his boys' kills, his harvest makes a marvelous story.

Rick was up on a hill when he saw the buck on the move in a sage-and-briar patch 200 yards below him. It would a long shot, but the hunter from Guntersville was prepared to empty his Remington 7400 semi-automatic if need be. He shouldered the gun, squeezed off a round and dropped the buck in its tracks on the very first shot.

"There was a lot of blood on the deer's head when I got to it, but I couldn't find a bullethole anywhere," Rick said. "I wasn't sure where I'd hit it for awhile." Closer inspection revealed that he'd made a stunning shot, the bullet having entered the deer's ear, plowed through its brain and exited by way of its other ear. ("I wasn't trying to do that," Rick modestly stated afterwards.) And so it was that, within a span of a couple of weeks, sons and father had all three of them brought down wallhangers.

A patient, persistent buck hunter, Cade and Cord Mason's dad Rick spends a lot of time in the field every fall and winter. His nearly 30 years of chasing the deer of Skyline WMA have seen the area surrender him 15 to 20 bucks. His advice for those heading there is to spend some time looking around before the hunt. While many go deep into the woods, Rick rarely hunts more than 150 to 200 yards from the road.

"I look for acorn flats with thick cover around them," he offered. "If you can get inside the thick stuff and go up a tree, it's probably even better."

Once other hunters start stirring, the deer naturally head into the thick cover. "I've had my best luck on Skyline bucks hunting the edges of the thickets," Rick asserted. "You see them sneaking through the thick stuff."

If you're looking for a nice buck of your own, you might want to consider the Martin-Skyline area yourself this season. In the opinion of area biologist Frank Allen, a 130-class deer like the one Cord Mason tagged is a great buck for the area. "But there are bigger ones here," he offered.

Skyline has long figured among the better whitetail-producing units of the state's WMA system, but recent performance has led to its being considered an up-and-coming area. It ranked No. 1 in the state last year for sheer number of whitetails harvested (the 441 brought to its check stations far outpacing No. 2 Choccolocco's 299) and No. 12 in the state for older-age-class bucks harvested (37 animals aged at 2 1/2 years old or older).

"Our harvest has been up for two years now," Allen said. "We've added about 12,500 acres of new property, and a big part of the increase can be attributed to that. We don't have the numbers of deer that they have in Bullock or Barbour County, but we do have a herd that is quite adequate."

Martin-Skyline WMA is actually composed of four different areas: Poplar Springs, the Walls of Jericho, Jacobs Farm and Big Coon. A quick review of each is order.