I grew up hunting whitetail in northcentral Ohio and have taken several nice bucks over the years, but none were nearly as big as this one. I had been watching this deer since the fall of 2021 when he was a big mainframe 8-point. He was a resident deer that frequented the farm where I hunt. I had numerous encounters with him that year but had elected to pass him as I was after a bigger deer that year.
The 2022 season came and went without any encounters or sightings of the buck. He had vanished from the property, but a neighboring hunter shared trail camera pics of this buck with me. All I could do was hope that the 170" 9-point would make it through the season.
On August 14, 2023, my hopes were confirmed. I was hanging trail cameras and freshening up my Lucky Buck mineral sites when I had my first encounter with the buck. I could not believe it as he fed into the timber from a bean field 40 yards from me. I have a nine- minute video of him from that evening. Once the buck fed off into the timber, I hung my last two Cuddeback trail cameras and exited the woods. From that evening on, I was obsessed with this deer.
I texted a buddy of mine and told him I’d seen a deer that could potentially contend for the state record. He was a huge main frame 12. I spent hours that night taking screenshots from the video and trying to figure out just how big he was. We were thinking maybe 190" based on the grainy low light video. Two days later, I got an email from my Cuddeback cameras and there he was. I knew that I was looking at a 200" deer, and my obsession continued to grow.
I spent the following days looking at maps and compiling a list of properties I was going to try and secure permission to hunt. Although I was unsuccessful on getting additional properties to hunt, I did get permission to hang trail cameras or to glass. I was glassing the deer three or four nights a week, trying to pin down his movements and predict where he might go when he shed his velvet.
One afternoon, I pulled in the driveway to knock on somebody’s door and there he was standing at 20 yards. I was thinking to myself, somebody has got to be after this deer, somebody has got to have seen this deer and must be hunting it.
As I expected, the buck drastically reduced its movements after he shed his velvet. I went from seeing the buck every night on trail cams and glassing to seeing him twice a week to seeing him maybe once a week. I didn’t give up hope; I knew that he was still in the area.
Archery season began on September 30th, and I had high expectations for early season. I had a daylight picture of the buck just six days before the season opener. Unfortunately, opening weekend came and went without a sighting or picture of him. Nearly four weeks went by without an in-person sighting and only a few trail cam photos. I thought the deer had left, and I was slowly losing hope.
Then, on October 23rd, I finally got a picture of the buck standing in my Merit Seed food plot not long after sunset. Then I got a picture the next day and the next. It only took one picture of the buck to reignite my obsession.
On the morning of Saturday, October 28th, I headed out to the woods. My expectations were high, knowing the deer was back in the area and I would be sitting in a stand I hadn’t hunted all year. However, as the hours passed without seeing any deer, my high hopes disappeared and I began thinking of heading home to get some work done before my evening hunt. I caught movement in the cornfield south of where I was sitting, and there he was! He was slowly working his way up a washout through the grass and short corn stalks. It was like seeing a ghost. I’d seen the deer so much. I’d watched him for hours and hours and hours, but this time, hunting season was in and I had a bow in my hands.
I thought the deer might work his way towards me, but he bedded down just off the washout only a couple hundred yards from me. I knew the wind was about to shift from southeast to south and he would wind me, so I slipped out and went home.
I studied my maps of where the buck had bedded down, looked at the wind forecast, and developed a plan to get within range for a shot. I belly crawled along the edge of the cornfield, staying downwind of the bedded buck. At one point, I realized my approach wasn’t going to work, so I backed out and started all over. My original plan was to slip into the cornfield, but I quickly realized the corn was too loud, so I decided to back out and stay in the mowed path along the field. It had rained that morning, which helped suppress my noise tremendously. After over an hour of crawling on my hands and knees, I finally found the perfect ambush spot. I tucked into some tall grasses, set up my seat, and made a small window to shoot through. I was situated perfectly between a scrape 35 yards to my left and the washout directly in front of me. Now I patiently waited with the buck bedded only 50 yards from me.
At around 2:30 that afternoon, I saw the 211" buck walking down the washout right towards me. I slowly stood into a half-crouched position when the buck stopped at 30 yards and turned to scratch its back. With the vitals in my scope, I put my finger on the trigger. The buck turned and headed right towards me! I was watching his eyes in my scope, and he was walking right at me, coming through the corn closer and closer. I was shaking as buck fever had taken over my mind and body. I was thinking if he kept walking, he was going to be right on me.
He finally stepped through the last row of corn at about 15 yards, picked his head up and looked me right in the eyes. He just stood there, unsure of what I was. As I was looking at him through my scope, I thought that I would have to take a frontal shot. I knew he was getting ready to run. Right when I was getting ready to squeeze, I noticed his tail flickering and he was slowly moving his hind end to prepare to spin and take off. I thought that as soon as he spun I had to shoot him. He spun, and I squeezed the trigger. I heard it hit him, and he took off. I could hear him mowing over the corn and eventually there was silence.
This is when the real panic set in. I knew I had hit him, but where did I hit him? I immediately called a friend to tell them the news. I was shaking uncontrollably and could barely talk. He calmed me down and got me thinking straight again. I slowly approached where the buck had been standing to look for blood but couldn’t find any. Instead of pushing further into the corn and risk bumping the deer, I headed for home. I knew the smart thing to do was give the deer time, so I called for backup and waited. Once we resumed the search, it didn’t take long to find blood. The buck was laying about 100 yards from where I had taken the shot. To my surprise, the shot was as perfect as you could imagine. Double lung and about three inches behind the shoulder.
The following day, I had a Buckeye Big Buck Scorer put a tape to him. He was 22 4/8" wide with three tines over 13", one of them being over 14", beams over 29", and the greatest spread over 26". He taped out at 211 4/8" gross. We couldn’t believe just how big he was.
Scorers with Buckmasters Whitetail Trophy Records (BTR) measured the buck at 208 5/8", which made it the new Buckmasters Ohio record holder in the Perfect category for all weapons and #2 in the country behind the Huff buck.
The craziest part of the entire story is that my dad harvested, at the time, the Ohio State record typical deer with a crossbow in 1989. I grew up admiring my dad’s 200"+ deer, hoping one day I would be able to track down my own 200"+ Deer. On October 28, 2023, I fulfilled my lifelong goal.
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