Rack Magazine

You’re either a deer hunter or a Soprano if your brother-in-law calls to say he killed Dave, and all you can say is “Woohoo!”

It’s a good thing Nathaniel Yoder was sitting down when he viewed the images captured by his trail camera in August 2012.

The Kentucky native had strapped the camera to a tree near a new mineral lick he’d established on the property he hunts in Harrison County. When he pulled the card and came across a photograph taken Aug. 7, stamped 7:32 p.m. (still daylight then), he got a little bug-eyed.

“I was shocked,” he said. “The deer actually had a rather small body, but its rack was huge!”

He took the photo to a family reunion a few weeks later and showed it to Dave, a distant cousin and die-hard deer hunter.

“He thought the rack might gross 190. He got so torn up about it that we ended up naming the big buck Dave,” Nathaniel grinned.

Nathaniel and his wife, Bethany, have spent the last six years in a rural Mennonite community in Harrison County. But he grew up in Webster County, where his dad introduced him to hunting with a rifle. He took up bowhunting four years later, when he was 16.

The thought of shooting a world-class buck was all-consuming until he started his own family, which is when he slowed.

“I now realize there are a lot of things in life — like God and family — that are more important,” he says.

Nathaniel has mostly bowhunted since he moved to Harrison County. He began using trail cameras about five years ago. Mineral supplements are still fairly new additions to his bag of tricks.

“I’ve collected pictures of several nice bucks, including a 160-class deer one year, but I never had a chance to shoot any of the big ones until 2012,” he said.

After getting the picture of the big velvet deer in August 2012, he switched to a slightly heavier arrow for his Mathews DXT.

Nathaniel didn’t have or make much time for bowhunting the first three weeks of September. He sat in a stand one afternoon and saw a couple of does. He also hung a couple of stands, though he often uses a climber.

“It was really too hot to hunt on most days,” he said.

“On Sept. 22, however, I decided to hunt the afternoon. I took my climbing stand and moved it a little farther down this ravine from where I had been hunting to a travel corridor the deer had been crossing.

“The ravine where I hung the stand is in a mixed stand of cedar and hardwoods,” he continued. “It’s about 50 or 60 yards in the woods, which flank a food plot of clover and alfalfa. Other than the food plot, there really aren’t any other crop fields nearby.”

Nathaniel prepared for the hunt, taking his usual precautions.

“I always shower and use unscented soap before hunting,” he said. “I wear a full Scent-Lok suit and use lots of odor-eliminating spray. I used to have trouble with deer smelling me, but after I started using the Scent-Lok, I don’t get busted nearly as often.”

He also carried a camera that day, figuring he’d be content to take a few photographs if no deer showed.

“The tree I climbed was a small one, but it was the only one suitable for my stand,” he said.

“About 6:15, I heard a deer on the trail that crosses the ravine. It was a small 8-pointer that I recognized as being the bigger buck’s frequent traveling companion.

“I started to get the camera out, but then I thought That’s the deer that’s been running with the big one. So I left it in my pocket,” Nathaniel continued. “About that time, I heard something in the brush behind the 8-pointer, and I stood and took my bow from its hanger.

“It was another buck. And as soon as it stepped fully into the open, there was no doubt that it was the big deer from the trail cam photo. Both deer were 30 yards from my tree,” he said.

The smaller buck eventually turned and headed away from Nathaniel, who figured the big one would do the same, meaning he’d better not delay in taking a poke at it.

“When the buck I wanted hit the trail, I held off shooting because I didn’t like the angle. Fortunately for me, it veered off and circled back toward my stand instead of following the smaller 4x4,” he said.

Nathaniel wound up with an 18-yard shot. He watched the fleeing buck for at least 60 yards before it disappeared into some brush.

“That’s when I got the shakes real bad,” he said. “I sat and tried to calm down, but I couldn’t. It had all happened so fast!

“I don’t know exactly how long I waited, but it couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes. When I got down, I followed the blood trail for about 75 or 100 yards, and then decided it would be better to wait a little longer. I tried to call Bethany, but couldn’t reach her. So I called her brother, Josh.

“‘You won’t believe what I just did,’ I told him. ‘I shot Dave!’

“All three of Bethany’s brothers arrived in short order, and we started trailing again. After 200 yards, I was starting to worry, but at least the deer was traveling downhill. When we got to the bottom and into a creek bed, we found it about 40 yards up the creek.

“After that, there was some whooping and hollering,” Nathaniel said. “It was around 11 p.m. when we finally got out of the woods with the buck. By then, Bethany and her whole family — plus quite a few of my friends — had convened to see Dave.

“The next day, I took the deer to Mountain Rest Taxidermy. Less than a month later, Dave was hanging on the wall,” he smiled.

Hunter: Nathaniel Yoder
BTR Score: 187 6/8
Compound Bow
Typical

– Photos Courtesy Nathaniel Yoder

This article was published in the July 2014 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.

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