A couple years ago, David Wardwell sidled up at a rod and gun club function and began a conversation with the words outdoor writers love to hear.

“I might have a story for you one of these days,” the Penobscot man said.

Over the next five minutes, Wardwell – “Cappy” to his friends – told me an as-yet-unfinished tale about family, friends, hunting and the fruitless pursuit of a truly big deer.

Any truly big deer.

The premise was simple: Bag a buck that weighs more than 200 pounds, and win a prize.

Simple … or maybe not.

When the Wardwell boys and a few friends began their quest at a hunting camp in Penobscot, Cappy explained, all were much younger men.

Ronald Reagan had just been elected president, but hadn’t begun serving his first term.

The year was 1979. Cappy Wardwell was 29, and figured it wouldn’t take too long for him or one of the other hunters to cash in.

After all, he and his brothers, Toby and Peter (“Sneaky Pete” to those in camp), had learned plenty about hunting at the hand of their father, Millard, an accomplished hunter and trapper who shared his knowledge and passion for the outdoors.

“One night we started talking and nobody had ever killed a 200-pound deer,” he said. “So we said, ‘OK, let’s everybody throw in five bucks.'”

Five bucks a year got you in the pool. Another five bucks and you’d be in for the yearly big buck contest – no 200-pounder was necessary.

A few years ago, with the number of hunters dwindling, Cappy and his brothers eliminated the yearly prize, and began putting $10 a year into the 200-pounder pool.

The years went by, the Wardwells began seeing more and more gray hair in their beards … and still, nobody won.

A few times, they came close.

Cappy shot a 191-pounder several years back – his biggest deer ever. His brother, Peter, came even closer, with a buck that weighed 198 pounds. If it had been 200 on the nose, though, Cappy Wardwell said his brother wouldn’t have cashed in the prize.

The Wardwells wanted there to be no doubt that the deer was a genuine 200-pounder.

So the pile of money, stowed in a plastic license holder for the past 27 years, kept growing. Hunters grew older, stopped coming to Maine to join in, and those who’d have liked to get in on the action were told they could … for a price.

The catch: The group kept exacting records, and could tell you exactly how much each of the charter 200-pound pool members had paid over the years. If you wanted in, you had to pay the same amount of “dues” that they had.

The location of their forays afield changed over the years. At first, the woods around Penobscot were the hunting grounds. They’ve since moved into the big north woods, and for the last three years, the hunting party has headed north of Chamberlain Lake with a large army tent and all the equipment they’d need for a week in the woods.

A week or so ago, an excited Cappy Wardwell called to tell me the good news.

“I just thought I’d give you a holler and tell you the big buck pool has come to an end,” he said.

On Nov. 6, they awoke to a welcome sight: Three inches of fresh snow had fallen.

But the presence of tracking snow didn’t seem to help their karma any.

“We had four vehicles, drove the roads all day long and never cut a track all day long,” Cappy Wardwell said. “We got back for supper and were very, very discouraged.”

The next day – election day – was much, much better.

“We cut a big buck’s track, and he was on the tail of a doe,” Cappy Wardwell said. “Toby said, ‘Do you think it’s worth tracking?’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah.'”

Toby, whose deer camp name – “Tracker” – reflects his expertise on the trail of deer, was glad to hear it.

“We’ve got all day,” Toby Wardwell said.

It didn’t take that long.

A couple hours later, the Wardwells caught up with the doe.

“I stepped out of a skidder road and the doe was standing there, looking at me, about 45 yards away,” David Wardwell said. “We waited probably a good 12 to 15 minutes. She couldn’t wind us, but she decided something wasn’t right. She spun, stepped off and started blowing every time she hit the ground.”

The Wardwells knew that the buck was likely nearby, and waited for their chance. David carried the gun, Thompson Contender single-shot rifle chambered in .375 Winchester. In the chamber was a special bullet he had asked his father to hand load for him about three years ago.

“I told him, Load this one up [for me]. I’m going to kill a 200-pound deer with it,” Cappy Wardwell said.

Finally, after 27 years of effort and countless miles of driving and trudging, Cappy Wardwell got the chance he’d been waiting for.

“About 30 seconds [after the doe left] I see some movement,” he said. “[Then] 50, 55 yards, the old boy came out.”

Cappy Wardwell shot the deer with that single special bullet, watched as it bolted out of sight, then sat down to wait for a bit.

On the videotape of the hunt that Cappy sent along with a few photos, his excitement was tangible as he and Toby moved forward to recover the deer.

“Oh, baby, light my fire,” he bellowed, raising his arms above his head as he spied the deer, just 30 yards from where he’d shot it.

Even on video, it’s plainly apparent that the critter is a big deer … the deer of a lifetime … an easy 200-pounder.

The massive 13-point rack is impressive. The neck and shoulders of the deer are muscular. And every time Cappy filmed the deer being dragged back to the truck, three panting and puffing hunters were doing the dirty work at the same time.

Later that night, they got ready to hoist the buck onto a special game pole to weigh it for the first time.

Where these hunters, go, Cappy Wardwell explains, the game pole goes. It’s more than a hunk of cedar, you see.

It’s the tree that provided the cedar boughs that another hunting buddy, Bobby Hileman, was laid to rest upon two years ago. When Hileman died, Toby Wardwell built the casket, and Hileman’s widow wanted to lay her husband to rest on a bed of cedar. The three Wardwell boys headed to Pete Wardwell’s land and cut that tree, now known in camp as “Bobby’s Big Buck Pole.”

“Where we go, it goes,” Cappy Wardwell wrote. “So Bobby’s always at camp with us.”

As the buck was lifted onto Bobby’s Big Buck Pole, it quickly became apparent the pool was closed. But by how much?

Plenty.

The burly 13-pointer weighed 258 pounds, field-dressed, and without the heart and liver.

Then, of course, there was the small matter of money. Twenty-seven years of big buck dues, now payable to Cappy Wardwell.

The grand total: $1,075.

Cappy said there were no hard feelings in camp. All of the hunters – Toby and Pete Wardwell, Larry Hall and Richard Lord – were excited.

“It’s just like every one of them shot the deer,” Cappy Wardwell said. “It was the best week of camp we’ve ever had. It didn’t matter who put him on the ground.”

All of which begs the question: What do you do now? Is there another 200-pound pool in the offing?

“No sir. Never. I’m never, ever going to get into a 200-pound pool again,” Cappy Wardwell said with a chuckle. “Like my brother Peter said when that deer hit the ground, ‘The curse is over.’ It’s just like the Boston Red Sox.

“It’s like that darned pool was a jinx on us,” he said.

Without the added pressure of that pool, Cappy figures he and his brothers can enjoy the ensuing years of hunting.

Cappy has been hunting for 44 years now. Pete has put in 43 autumns. Toby has 42 years of hunting to his credit.

“Now we can go out and hunt deer, and not have to worry about that darned pool any more,” Cappy Wardwell said.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailiynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.