2016 Ohio buck

Jay/NC

Eight Pointer
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My buddy Clay has a family farm in Meigs Co. OH and we've been hunting it for several years now. He & his sons went up during the summer & put in a couple of small food plots. I wasn't able to tag along due to a funeral. Clay & I came back up a couple of weeks before the season opened to bait some areas with corn. I told him we needed to plan on coming back up to hunt when the first cold front was forecasted. We both watched the weather & our anticipation began building when we saw the slight drop in temps for the past weekend.

We loaded up my truck & hit the road last Friday evening. We arrived around 2:30am after the 5-6 hr. drive. He dropped me off & I quickly got my Lonewolf, sticks & pack together & slipped on my boots & disappeared into the darkness. I hung my stand in one of my favorite places for a NW wind on the farm as quietly as possible. Clay was popping up a ground blind next to one of his plots & checking his trail cams. I got back to the house around 4am & after looking at the pics I decided to stay up, jump in the shower & head back to the stand versus taking a nap.

I was in the tree before 7am & started seeing deer around 8. I ended up seeing 3 bucks (1.5yo 4pt, 2.5yo 6pt & 2.5yo 8pt), a small flock of hens/poults & a yote. I wanted to shoot the yote but he was more interested in chasing the 4pt than coming to my "squeeks". After putting out corn we both took a short power nap & climbed back in the saddle. I only saw 1 doe Sat PM. The spot I was hunting has consistently been a better AM stand. Clay saw deer from his ground blind in the morning but I can't remember what exactly. He moved to his "Hilton" box blind for his evening hunt & saw lots of deer including one NICE shooter out of range.

Sunday AM I hunted my LW for the 3rd time & saw turkeys & 1 doe. My mom called me around 8am so I reluctantly bailed out of the stand to walk back toward the road to call her back & see what was going on. Clay & I both live in central NC but I was born & raised on a farm in Clinton, NC. You may have heard of the lil storm named Matthew that heading up the eastern seaboard this past weekend. According to all the weather "experts" the storm was supposed to make a U-turn & head back south. Needless to say they were wrong. Mom told me her basement had flooded on both ends & she had a monster pine tree fall directly on her out building. After some "discussion" I told her I'd see her Monday AM. I climbed back up & hunted until noon without seeing anything besides more turkeys. I decided to pull my stand & move close to Clay's box blind for our last evening hunt.

After grabbing some lunch & shooting my bow I hung my stand in a tree off the box blind plot that I had hunted in previous years. It was the right decision. Clay said he didn't see deer on his Saturday PM hunt until after 6 out of the box blind so we went out a lil later that evening. (More nap time!) We got settled just before 6. (Clay in the Hilton & me in my LW). It was only minutes before a flock of turkeys made their way across the field headed to roost. Then around 6:30 some does, fawns & a spike came out to feed. Right before dark 4 bucks entered the plot on a trail 20 yards from me. (For further clarification the Hilton was only 78 yds. from where I was hunting according to my rangefinder.) The 4th buck dwarfed the others in body size even though he rack wasn't huge. I quickly decided to try to take him before I ran out of shooting light. When he got in an opening thru the limbs I ranged him at 23 yards perfectly broadside. Unfortunately by the time I got to full draw he had turned slightly toward the box blind & taken a few steps. I centered my 20 & 30 yd. pins on his opposite front shoulder & squeezed. In an instant my arrow was gone. I saw the green nock light up for a split second, heard the all too familiar whack & the light disappeared. He wheeled to his left & took off like a bat outa hell. I noticed he was running low for all he was worth with his tail down & twitching like crazy. What I didn't see was the green lighted nock. Not in him or on the ground. That was the only thing that worried me. He was out of sight in a matter of a couple of seconds. I was jacked up at this point to say the least. I felt really good about the shot based on the location the arrow entered him as well as the sound of it. I lowered my bow, took down my LW and sticks, packed up everything & walked over to check on Clay.

The first thing he said to me was "why'd you shoot my deer" with a big smile. I laughed and said "it was right at dark & you should have shot him if you wanted to". We decided to go back to the house and pack everything up before we started looking for blood. Because we had a 5.5 hour drive ahead of us plus I had to drive an extra 2.5 hours to my mom's I was really hoping he didn't make it far.
We returned to the scene of the crime around 8:45pm. We looked for blood for about 30 minutes within 50 yds. of POI without having any luck. Finally Clay yelled "I got blood!” & I was immediately relieved. The blood trail was easy to follow & got better the farther we went. Once inside the wood line he only made it 75-100 yards all downhill. After finding my buck we took some hero shots, drug his butt back to the field (NOT FUN!) & headed to the local deer processor. He ended up grossing in the high teens, weighed 235 lbs. live weight & by the processors estimation he was 3.5yo.

It was long drive back to Clinton NC to help my mom with her storm damage. I didn't sleep at all Friday night or Sunday night but boy the catnaps sure did come in handy. I worked my butt off Monday and Tuesday but things are getting back to normal for her and most importantly she’s ok!
 

Larry R

Old Mossy Horns
Nice buck, really like those dark antlers. Congratulations. Thankfully your mom's damages can be repaired and most importantly she was OK.
 

Jay/NC

Eight Pointer
Thanks for all the kind comments. I look forward to taking my son up there for some crossbow hunting & youth gun season!


Keep looking up!
 

NCST8GUY

Frozen H20 Guy
Man,

I LOVE detailed stories on the forum!!! Congrats on everything you had to do and adjust to fill that tag! I'm sorry to read of the damage to your mother's home, but a 235 pound buck in the final minutes should surely help lessen the blow.

Congrats!!!!! Great hunt and thank you for sharing it with us!!
 

labman63

Ten Pointer
I grew up right across the river from Meigs county. I used to go back and bow hunt in the 80's but now I'd rather train dogs and duck hunt. Great story and buck.
 

Jay/NC

Eight Pointer
Update from last year's thread:

Gman (10yo at that time) ended up scoring a nice buck during the 2016 OH youth gun season.

A rainy cold front was pushing through the morning of the opener (11/19) so we didn't get in our stands until 10am. The rain had just stopped, the temps were dropping and the winds were picking up. Good thing we were bundled up and had plenty of snacks/water. It snowed and sleeted on us several times and G tried to get me to head back to the house but I assured him if we stuck it out he would be rewarded. Luckily the deer gods smiled on him. And to top it off I got it on video. :greenjump:

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