Brandon Myers slipped an arrow through this drop-tined buck just nine hours after it walked past his trail camera.
The Ohio bowhunter had dedicated most of his 2017 season to hunting another buck on another property where he’d seen it cross the road. He wound up getting a 35-yard shot at the deer, but the arrow flew high and only shaved hair off its back.
When Brandon learned a neighbor had tagged the animal he’d been chasing, he began searching for an alternate place to hunt. That led him to an 800-acre tract.
The most promising portion of the new farm had been logged, and that’s where he, his father and cousin dumped 600 pounds of corn and set up a trail camera that would send images to their phones.
It was a long hike to the setup, but worth the huff and puff.
“There was such a clutter of treetops and brush up there, we just knew a big buck was calling the place home,” Brandon told Ed Waite, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.
Almost immediately, the camera began sending photos of deer. On the night of Dec. 30, Brandon received 20 pictures. Among the many deer was a monstrous buck they hadn’t seen to that point.
Pumped at the prospect of seeing the bull of the woods, Brandon and his father hunted the very next evening.
After spraying himself with scent-killer, Brandon carried a 5-gallon bucket to a hilltop blind. It took 45 minutes to reach it.
Deer were active the entire afternoon.
The drop-tined buck he’d seen among the previous night’s trail cam images appeared a little past 5:00. Brandon shot it at 30 yards.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “After almost three months of hard hunting, my season went from bust to boom in one day.”
The Ross County whitetail has a BTR score of 196 3/8 inches.
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