It didn’t take Jimmy Recore, 54, long to score — and score big … real big — right in his Poland neighborhood of Conway during the ongoing archery deer season.

Yes, there he was, opening day and getting dark with 6 p.m. quickly approaching, positioned 12 to 14 feet high in his portable tree stand, rain sprinkling down, when he detected movement and saw a trophy buck slowly feeding his way through the woods on acorns.

“He was coming slowly and my first thought was that he was going to get to me too late,” Recore recalled. But this time his knee-jerk intuition backed by 39 years of bowhunting and 34 kills, was dead wrong, because, “He came to me as though he was on a string, walking right into a lane 20 yards away.”

That’s when Recore let his first arrow fly and missed high, the big deer moving temporarily behind an oak tree before popping back out into sight to continue devouring acorns, this time moving even closer, to within 10 yards. Arrow notched, Recore again let fly, this time delivering a bulls-eye through the vitals, piercing both lungs just a few minutes before 6.

The deer fled and Recore was all shook up, reaching immediately for his cell phone to text his wife, his daughter and his hunting buddy Jim Robator, who was the first on the scene to help find and remove the deer from the woods. It hadn’t gone far. There it was, less than 50 yards away, lying prostrate on the path Recore uses to get into his stand. “Wow!” Recore thought as he stood over this monster 8-pointer with massive, symmetrical, typical antlers and a big, thick neck and body to match. “This deer is bigger than I thought.”

Recore and Robator field-dressed the big animal, took photos (see Page D3) and dragged it out of the woods in the customary darkness all veteran deer hunters must learn to cope with while performing such messy chores. Curious what it weighed when they got it home, Recore hung it on his scale, which he believes is accurate, and got a “preliminary” weight of between 234 and 235 pounds. Then, by the time he got it to the Sunderland Hatchery checking station the next morning, the official platform scale there recorded the weight at 225 pounds. Could it have lost almost 10 pounds to overnight dehydration in warm temperatures even though packed with ice to preserve the meat? Yes, it’s possible, but why even go there? No matter how you cut it, Dude, a 225-pound western Massachusetts buck is about as good as it gets, not to mention the largest buck ever taken by Recore himself over a long, diligent and successful bowhunting career.

Like many an old-time deer hunter, Recore — who works at UMass for the grounds crew and helps out as an assistant girls’ track coach at Frontier Regional School — used the September opening of squirrel season to scout deer, assessing feed and sign through the oaks. He had seen his buck once while hunting squirrels, sure he could recognize its distinctive rack, but had no clue of its body mass until he stood awestruck over its carcass.

An old-school, throwback bowhunter, Recore retired his compound bow in 1993 and “went traditional,” digging out his old, 1968 Bear Grizzly recurve with a pull only a strong man can hold. Not only that, but he makes his own fletching for his arrows, including the one that killed the big buck, from the wing feathers of wild turkeys he’s killed. His broadheads, too, were antiques of sorts, from the Sixties, called Green Bear razor heads, with two razor inserts. Apparently, his antiquated equipment still works just fine in the right hands.

Recore decided on a European mount to adorn his den wall. His trophy buck’s head is now in New Jersey, where cadaver beetles will pick it clean, eventually leaving a white, bleached-out skull and antlers for display. The 5-year-old buck’s antler spread was 21 inches, again in the rarified Pioneer Valley air of spreads.

Not only does Recore use traditional equipment, he has a vintage way of thinking that’s rare among the dwindling contemporary hunter pool. He says his late father instilled in his sons two bowhunting values he has never violated: that is, never shoot more than 20 yards and obey all game laws. Though not critical of those who use newfangled deer-hunting accessories to improve their chances, he himself does not choose to “rattle,” employ grunt or doe-in-heat calls and attractants, and he doesn’t set up trail cameras to scope out his prospects and improve his chances. Plus, he says, he is not a selective hunter focused only on big bucks, big-buck pools and big-buck clubs. No, that’s not necessary in his world. “To me,” he said, “any deer killed by bow and arrow is a trophy. I’d rather be a woodsman than a man who relies on technology.”

As for observations that could be helpful to deer hunters coming down the stretch to the Nov. 26 end of season, Recore says the breeding season or “rut” has finally arrived. He started noticing scrapes on Saturday, a few days after the early snowstorm that blanked the uplands with up to six inches of snow last week.

Over the years, Recore claims that three dates have been particularly rewarding to him as a bowhunter. One of them, ghoulish Halloween, has already passed. But still ahead are Veterans Day and the day after Thanksgiving, both of which have been productive.

So, somehow you get the feeling that if Recore hasn’t yet filled his second tag by either of those two remaining prime hunting dates, he’ll be climbing up into one of his Conway stands come 3 p.m. to sit it out till dark, just like he did on that Oct. 17 opening day.

With a big one already in the freezer, there’s not an ounce of quit in Jimmy Recore when it comes to bowhunting for deer.