Just because a buck changes zip codes doesn't mean it's gone for good.
After months of drooling over trail camera photographs of a truly world-class whitetail, Jamey Collier of Chillicothe, Ohio, was crushed when the flow of images was staunched. He and his wife had nicknamed the deer Hook because of a distinctive point on its left beam.
For three weeks in October 2014, there were no photos of Hook, and Jamey was worried a neighbor might've arrowed the deer. He needn't have lost any sleep, though, because the big whitetail eventually returned.
When Jamey and his wife, Keri, went to a blind on Nov. 17, they were surprised to find that it had collapsed due to the weight of the day's snowfall. Even the tall grass around it was flattened.
Jamey was ready to turn around and go back home, but his wife insisted they might as well stay for a while. So they shook off and re-erected the blind.
"At 5:05, Keri whispered, ‘Here comes a doe,' and then I heard her say ‘Oh my God!'" Jamey told Ed Waite, who wrote the story for Buckmasters magazine. "I wasn't sure what she meant 'til she whispered ‘big buck.'"
When Hook finally committed and strolled to within 15 yards of the blind to sniff a mock scrape, Jamey squeezed his crossbow's trigger.
The Ross County, Ohio, buck - a Semi-irregular in the BTR - has a composite score of 187 7/8 inches.