Big Buck 411 Blog

Like Son, Like Father

Like Son, Like Father

By Mike Handley

Last fall, Ohio’s Rick and Doug Kisamore joined a very exclusive club, whose members include fathers and sons with 200-plus-inchers in the record book.

Doug shot his, a Portage County 23-pointer, in 2016. It tallied a whopping 240 4/8 inches. Rick’s 2019 buck from Summit County comes in at 216 3/8 inches.

Rick had known about his buck for two years before he shot it. He first saw it cruising a riverbank on the family farm, looking for does in the middle of the day. Had the gobsmacked hunter not dropped his call, he would’ve tried grunting to persuade the animal to swim the river.

He began referring to the deer as Palmer after that, since one side of its rack was palmated. He saw the buck many times after that in 2017, always on the opposite side of the river, but he never got a shot.

The following year, Palmer didn’t materialize until mid-December, posing for only one trail camera photograph.

In 2019, one of Rick’s brothers unwittingly walked right up to the deer everyone feared had left the property, if indeed it was still alive.

“I was at work when Jeff called to tell me he was in a stare-down with Palmer,” Rick told Ed Waite, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine. “They were on opposite sides of a downed tree, long enough for Jeff to take a couple of pictures with his phone.”

Palmer was a good buck in 2017. Bigger in 2018. This year, as revealed by the hastily taken photos, he was breathtaking.

Under threat of a heavy Veteran’s Day snowfall, Rick and his sons, Mitch and Doug, hunted on Monday, Nov. 11. Doug went to another farm, 5 miles from where his dad and brother were getting into stands.

About 8:00, after Rick had sent a text to Mitch about the eerie stillness, he looked up and saw Palmer quartering away from him. If he hadn’t glanced in that direction, he might’ve missed seeing the deer altogether.

“I had to turn more than 90 degrees to my right to get on the animal,” he said. “It was cruising by, and the distance between us was growing. The angle was perfect.”

To slow the big whitetail, Rick mouth-bleated. A second later, he released his arrow, and the deer went down immediately.

As soon as the hunter’s legs and lungs would work, he got down and put another arrow into the deer to close the book.

— Read Recent Blog! Biting the Dust: Any self-respecting bowhunter can make an 8-yard shot, right?

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