Deer hunters are easier to pattern than deer.
It took 18-year-old Cole Tiger of Bellaire, Ohio, the entire 2015 season to realize he was being played by the buck he hoped to shoot. While the enormous whitetail loved to mug for the teenager's trail camera, it never once came out to play when he was sitting in his stand.
By the time Cole put two and two together, the season was in his rearview mirror.
According to the vast collection of trail cam images, the buck visited the family's corn pile only two or three hours after Cole left the woods.
"The buck had patterned me," he told Ed Waite, who's writing his story for Rack magazine. "I believe it could actually see where I parked my truck each time I hunted."
When he retrieved photographs of the buck in mid-July, he was thrilled to know it had survived. He immediately began scheming for the 2016 season, and his first instinct was to park in a different spot on the 66-acre farm. A mile hike to his stand seemed a small price to pay.
He wound up devising an entirely different strategy that would require the help of his father, Bill.
"Dad drove me to the farm about 10 a.m. on opening day, and I slipped out of the truck and laid low until he was out of sight. Then I quietly snuck to my tree and climbed 26 feet," he said.
As planned, Bill returned that afternoon to refresh the small corn pile. He didn't try to be quiet because he wanted the deer to know he was there, also that he left. Cole was in his stand the whole time.
Later that day, he was watching a couple of small 8-pointers. When they grew antsy and stared at the tree line, Cole knew another deer was coming.
Turns out, it was the one he'd dreamed about for three years. When it came in and turned broadside at 34 yards, Cole squeezed his crossbow's trigger.
He and his dad decided not to push the deer that night, lest it leave the farm. When they found it the next morning, there was only a skeleton left. Coyotes had stripped clean the carcass.
"Ninety percent was consumed," Cole said. "The cape also was torn to shreds.
"Had I expected such an outcome, I think Dad and I would have gone back in there in the dark to look for it," he added.
The Monroe County 21-pointer has a BTR composite score of 203 4/8 inches.
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