Relive the excitement of this 5 year quest for a legendary Illinois whitetail nicknamed "Sweetness". As featured in the August 2012 issue of the Whitetail Journal , the hunt for Sweetness first started on a fateful day during the summer of 2007 when he was spotted feeding with a bachelor group of bucks.

As a four year old whitetail with an already impressive rack, Sweetness was photographed several times in velvet. At the time, his 16 point rack earned him the nickname "Sweet 16". Later that fall, bowhunter Mike Bunning had an encounter with the giant that left both hunter and whitetail a little worse for wear, but still alive.

The following year, Sweet 16 grew an even more impressive rack as he continued to show up on trail camera. Although come hunting season, the buck vanished. The same story unfolded in 2009 with several trail camera pictures of the buck, which was now pushing the 200 inch mark, but no shot opportunities presented themselves.

In 2010 Todd and Mike were once again hard on the heels of this Illinois bruiser. Although with the addition of some more points, they now changed the buck's name to "Sweetness". Todd had several encounters with the buck during late season bowhunting, but was unable to get close enough for a shot.

When the 2011 season rolled around, Todd and Mike had one common goal between them and that was to hunt Sweetness until one of them got a shot. Then, on one fateful afternoon the buck showed up in the very spot where Mike had gotten a shot at him some 4 years earlier, only this time the end of the story was laying just 50 yards from Mike's Lone Wolf stand.

Read The Full Story

Follow Sweetness through trail camera photos starting in 2007 all the way to trophy photos in 2012.

Watch a series of trail camera videos of Sweetness.