Barry Rose's 16-point bow buck had a final score of 187 2/8 typical inches. Photo courtesy of Barry Rose.

The story about Barry Rose's new state-record bow buck is one of a typical hunting family in Wisconsin. Barry's mother, Kathy, and father, Jerry, both hunt, as do his brothers and sister. Then you add Barry's three sons -- Cody, Brady and Payton -- to round out the posse.

OK, so most of us don't own a Super Bowl ring like Barry received while playing wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills, who drafted him out of UW-Stevens Point. But next to deer hunting, football is about as Wisconsin as you can get. And of course, only family and deer season come before football in this state. Even Barry's first look at the awesome typical buck was a family event. On a late-September afternoon, he took his youngest son, Payton, out with him.

"Hunting has always been a family thing for us," said Barry, who is superintendent of Elmwood Schools in western Wisconsin. "It was that way growing up, and we keep it that way with my family today.

"The thing that's important to remember when bringing an 8-year-old along, is the hunt is about them," Barry stressed. "I usually go to the backside when hunting this area. Well, I didn't want to put Payton through all that work, so we took the easy way. Thirty minutes before dark, Payton started getting antsy. Rather than make him miserable and ruin the hunt, we snuck out early. We had just started driving out when we spotted the huge buck crossing an open lane. If Payton wasn't with me, I would have went in the way I usually do, and would have stayed in my stand until dark. Either way, I wouldn't have seen that buck.

"I won't pretend I knew he was a new record, but I knew he was bigger than any of the four I have on my wall," Barry continued. "He had good mass, long tines and was in a different category than anything I had ever seen in the woods.

"That one glimpse changed how I approached the season," he said. "With three boys, we go through a lot of venison. I usually shoot a couple does a year. The year before was Brady's first year to hunt. After he shot two does, I decided we had enough meat and didn't shoot one myself. Well, then we became an Earn-A-Buck Unit, which left me without a purple sticker. I knew right there that I didn't want to see him again until I had my buck sticker."

Over the next couple of weeks, Barry left that area alone and focused on filling his doe tag. "It was starting to get to me," Rose admitted. "I wanted to go after that buck, but couldn't get my doe tag filled."

That changed on Oct. 7. Brady already had his purple sticker, and being 13 years old, he also qualified for the 2006 Youth Deer Hunt. With bucks now fair game for kids with stickers, father and son went back to Mr. Big's home turf.

"When the youth hunt came, I couldn't think of a bigger thrill than having Brady be the one to shoot him," Barry said. "Hunting is all about building memories. What a memory that would make!"

Climbing into the same tree -- Brady armed with a gun and Barry with a bow -- the goal was to kill a giant and to get Barry his sticker. Well, a spent shell and quiver full of arrows later, Mr. Big still lived, but purple stickers were no longer an issue because Brady took a doe and Barry arrowed two. The massive buck was now fair game for Barry.

Life as a school superintendent is a busy one. Between concerts, plays, conferences, meetings and sporting events, that doesn't leave many afternoons open for hunting. "We don't have school activities on Wednesdays," Barry said. "So that's when I typically get out to hunt."

Things were getting a little crazy in the Rose household last fall. Barry was inducted into UW-Stevens Point's Football Hall Of Fame on the weekend of Oct. 21, and when you add that with all the school events, Rose needed a break.

"I go to all the school functions and felt guilty even thinking about skipping the high school concert," Barry admitted. "With everything going on and a cold front moving in, I wanted to unwind in the woods. After checking with the principal to be sure he would be there, I decided to go hunting. I still felt guilty the whole time I was driving to the spot."

It wouldn't be long before he was in his environment.

"Before I went in, I filled a film canister with Wildlife Research Center's No. 1 Select Estrus," Barry said. "Because I was in a rush to get up the tree, I didn't think much about where I hung it. I knew I had put it close to one of my shooting lanes, but I was more focused on hunting than placement. It was already 4:45 and deer were moving!"

Barry's stand location screams "big-buck hotspot" because it has a large opening on one side and a mature woods running up to the edge of extremely thick cover. The stand faces the thick stuff, with a couple of shooting lanes slicing into the nearly impenetrable cover. Making the stand even better is a bedding area on one side, and food on the other. Deer wanting to get from bed to food would travel the edge of the cover and pass within easy bow range.