When John Evanoff isn't tending to his medical practice, you may well find him hunting somewhere.

He's taken a grizzly in Alaska and moose in Canada over the years, and many white-tailed buck deer. But an eight-point buck he killed with a bow recently in Jackson County, Mich., may stand at the top of his hunting experiences.

The eight-pointer has a heavy, symmetrical rack of antlers, which spread 161/2 inches, and a heavy body. It field-dressed at 225 pounds and had an estimated live weight of 265 or more.

“This particular buck I've been watching for three years, and he's gotten bigger every year,” said Evanoff, who is better known to his friends as Chip. He is chairman of the department of family practice at Flower Hospital and maintains an office practice in Metamora.

Now 39, the doctor-hunter said he has been bowhunting since he was 12. He acknowledges that his vocation and avocation may seem worlds apart to some people. But he is as dedicated to the hunt as he is to family practice. On his own time, hunting is what he does and a hunter is who he is.

“I actually put myself through medical school by fur trapping.”

Back to the trophy: “I've killed a lot of bucks, but nothing of this size till now,” said Evanoff. The antlers have been scored at 128 points, green.

Evanoff was hunting on private land last week and watched a spike buck browse toward his stand. He missed the shot and the spike ran off and stopped about 60 yards out. The hunter used his grunt-call to try to bring the small buck back to within shooting range, but it wandered off.

It turned out, however, that another, much bigger pair of ears may have heard the comeback grunt. Ten minutes after missing the spike, Evanoff watched the big eight-pointer trot down a fence line. He grunted. The buck slipped in to within 13 yards.

This shot, from Evanoff's 65-pound compound bow, did not miss. The trophy went down in a field of goldenrod. “Right before I shot him, he tore up a tree and he made a scrape on the ground. Every hair was bristling.”

Quite the student of whitetails, Evanoff relates about years of hunting the Jackson County land and how he watched one buck for six seasons, observing its antler and body growth, without a chance to take it. The last time he saw it, the buck was a heavy nine-point, a Pope & Young or Boone & Crockett possible. “Then he just disappeared. Nobody got him, so he must just have died of old age.”

However, Evanoff several years ago noticed another buck with similar antler characteristics and body configuration. He figured it was one of the old buck's progeny.

This time around for Evanoff, however, the buck stopped here.

wAn Ohio record hybrid sunfish weighing 1.67 pounds has been caught from a farm pond in Jackson County by Peggy Johnson of Oak Hill, O.

The sunfish, a green sunfish-bluegill cross, was 12 inches long and was taken on a red worm. Johnson has worked with the Ohio Wildlife District 4 office at Athens on the “Becoming an Outdoors Woman” program. She caught the fish July 30. The prior state-record hybrid sunfish was 1.43 pounds, taken in 1999 in a Trumbull County farm pond.

Johnson's sunfish is the fourth record Ohio fish certified this year by the Outdoor Writers of Ohio, the official record-keeping organization in the state.

For other details on the state-record-fish program, contact Tom Cross, the OWO record fish chairman, at 937-386-2752.

wThe Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge has upgraded its Internet website to include pages on refuge history, wildlife programs, habitat management, work and volunteer activities, directions to the refuge, and visitor programs and activities, among other features.

Among the features is a section on recent bird sightings. Another section includes details on a controlled deer hunt planned on the refuge in January. A quiz section tests knowledge of bird identification, and a habitat management exercise allows the web user to play the role of refuge manager.

The website was designed by Stan Cornelius, a refuge staff specialist. The address is: www.fws.gov/r3pao/ottawa/ottawa.html.

Also, the Pennsylvania Game Commission now is able to sell hunting and fur-taking licenses on the Internet.

Residents and nonresidents alike may purchase any of the hunting or fur-taking licenses or stamps offered at license agencies through the PA PowerPort at www.state.pa.us or directly from the Game Commission at www.pgc.state.pa.us.

License-buyers will need to supply address, Social Security number and a VISA or MasterCard number to complete a purchase.

Licenses will be sent by mail, along with a current copy of the Hunting and Trapping Digest of Regulations, harvest-report cards, and an official antlerless deer license application and envelope. Internet purchasers will be assessed $1.25 additional for shipping and handling.

Steve Pollick is The Blade's outdoor writer. E-mail him at spollick@theblade.com.

First Published October 26, 2000, 11:03 a.m.