Marion County gave up this 14-point buck to Matt Oden. The rack scored 159 B&C as a typical. Photo courtesy of Matt Oden.

The part of northwest Alabama stretching from Pickens County through Lamar, Marion and Winston Counties is about as good an area as any in the state for trophy bucks.

These are the stories of four hunters who took better-than-average bucks in that part of the state last season, keeping a trend alive for trophy whitetails coming from that corner of the Cotton State.

LAMAR COUNTY DROP-TINE BUCK
For several seasons now, Lamar County has been one of the state's premier locales for big bucks. It proved that to Brian Marquis in the 2007-08 season.

A main-line conductor on the Burlington, Northern & Santa Fe Railroad -- a lot of his hunting buddies call him by the nickname "Boxcar -- Marquis, 32, lives in the West Jefferson area. A lifelong hunter, he estimates that he has killed about 300 deer in his career, including several above average bucks. But he'd never taken anything like the 14-pointer with an 8-inch drop tine that he got while hunting private land in Lamar County on Dec. 18.

The hunt for the buck had actually started the season before. He and a friend had found extra large deer sign in the area and had hunted it a good bit the previous year.

"I killed a 10-point that scored in the mid-130s in there and thought I'd killed the deer making all the big sign," Marquis said. "But I went back a week later and all the big sign was still fresh."

The magic place included a strip of hardwoods surrounded by a 3-year-old cutover. When Marquis went back in there during the 2007-08 season, he found the old scrapes had been freshened and the buck was rubbing on "softball-sized trees."

"The sign started showing up the last week of October," Marquis said. "I bowhunted in there about seven times and passed on a couple of small bucks."

The scraping activity got even more intense once rifle season came in. "I was seeing other bucks, but I never could see the big deer," he explained.

On the fateful day, Marquis was hunting with good friend Shawn Alexander and cousin Shane. They'd hunted some other private ground and had been driving cutovers.

"My cousin had killed a real nice 7-pointer, and my buddy had killed a doe," he said.

The other men knew Marquis had been hunting a big deer at the other location and they got after him to go push that cutover too. He initially declined, but they stayed after him and he soon relented.

"They talked me into it," he admitted. "But I told them we were going to have to do it my way."

The cutover at the big buck spot covered about 57 acres. It was basically two big draws. Nothing got up in the first draw.

"Shawn volunteered to walk the other draw since I had walked first all day before that," Brian Marquis said.

It took a good bit of positioning to get ready for the drive. Marquis had to get on a ridge so he could see the rest of the cutover. Shawn had to circle through some hardwoods to get to the bottom of the draw so he could push up through it.

"As soon as he started into the cutover, two big does got up out of some chest-high pines," Marquis recounted. "With those does in there, I thought there ought to be a buck around."