In the fall, Kyle Bowers often spends the remains of weekdays in a deer stand. One Friday last November, however, he decided an evening sit wasn't enough.
The 37-year-old mechanical pipe fitter from Ladoga, Indiana, hunted after work on Thursday, Nov. 13. Just before dark, Kyle heard what sounded like a buck chasing a doe. A few minutes later, he saw a giant making a scrape.
He remained in his stand for another hour so he wouldn't spook the deer while leaving. He had no idea such a whitetail was roaming the 100 acres he hunts.
"I knew nothing about that deer; hadn't seen it, and I'd heard no rumors. I had one trail cam picture of him from the side, so it didn't look nearly as big," he told Gita Smith, who's writing the story for Rack magazine.
Pumped over the encounter, he skipped work Friday, but the deer was a no-show. He returned even earlier on Saturday.
Around 8:30, Kyle saw the dream buck chasing two smaller ones in the nearby corn. It passed within crossbow range at one point, but it was moving too fast and eventually disappeared.
Kyle saw it again, about 80 yards distant, three hours later.
"I grunted at the buck three times, but it wouldn't come," Kyle said. "It disappeared into a bedding area, where I assume it was looking for does."
The bull of the woods might not have come across any does, but it did encounter the juvenile bucks it had chased earlier. As it gave chase, Kyle heard its rack clipping cornstalks, a sound that took him awhile to decipher.
Eventually, the aggressor exited the corn and visited a scrape at the edge of the woods.
"I took out my doe bleat, called twice, and the buck walked straight to me. He came in broadside from my right, but behind me," Kyle said.
Close enough, and doable.
After the bolt struck it, the buck seemed unwilling to run, at first. After walking slowly away, it burst into a trot for 30 yards before lying down and taking its last labored breath.
With a Buckmasters score of 232 2/8 inches, the 24-pointer is a new runner-up to the Indiana state record for crossbow-felled Irregulars.
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