Contrary to popular belief, people who book hunts with outfitters rarely take home 200-inch bucks. Not wild ones anyway.
Lodge owners can manage only for mature bucks, whether their holdings are large or small, in Alabama or Ohio. Yet the older these deer become, the less likely they’ll abide the stepped-up pressure of a string of pay-to-play hunters.
Four Pennsylvania deer hunters might disagree, however.
Lance Faidley and three buddies can’t imagine a deer season without a trip to neighboring Ohio, where they hunt with Sunfish Valley Whitetail Outfitters in Pike County.
Following their first unsuccessful day afield in 2017, a trail camera yielded a photograph of a buck they’d nicknamed Gnarls the previous season. All of them had that deer on their minds when they struck out on Day Two.
The temperature had climbed into the high 40s by lunchtime, and it was raining when Lance carried his Mathews bow and a climber a quarter-mile from where Gnarls had been photographed.
“A little more than an hour later, a 5-pointer bedded down just 50 yards from my tree, staring right at me. I didn’t know for certain it could see me, but I had to remain very still as a precaution,” Lance told Ed Waite, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.
“About 4:30, I saw movement in a greenbrier thicket,” he added.
Lance thought he was looking at a basket-racked 8-pointer, at first. But the antlers grew like a chia plant when he saw them through his binocs.
It was Gnarls.
When Lance returned to the cabin later, he said nothing about the deer in the truck. Only one pal had helped him retrieve and load the animal.
“When I finally mentioned I needed to get my stand out of the truck, our guide went over to assist,” he said. “When he opened the tailgate, he discovered the buck underneath the stand. The look on his face was amazing!”
The deer tallies 209 5/8 inches on the BTR scale.
— Read Recent Blog! When a Tree isn’t a Tree: Hunter: Darrin Dawes | The buck’s antlers tallied 192 3/8 inches on the BTR scale.