18-year-old Carson Putnam has been on a roll the last couple of years, claiming Ohio's #1 spot in BTR's Centerfire Rifle category after harvesting this 33-pointer in November 2021 that's truly one of a kind, and a 184-inch mainframe 5x5 in 2022 that he's even more proud of.
Carson's state record from Ross County has a compact frame with an 8 1/8 inch inside spread and scored 259 1/8 inches by Buckmaster's yardstick! All eight circumference measurements were 7 2/8 inches or more and It's the largest deer ever harvested in the state by a youth hunter with any weapon.
The week before Ohio's youth gun weekend, word of this buck cruising through the area quickly began circulating through the grapevine.
"The farmer across the road had seen this deer while harvesting crops and said it looked like coke cans were coming out his head. The Wednesday before I killed him, my dad's buddy said this deer was on the other side of his field along a fence row," Carson told Buckmasters.
While glassing fields from the road on his family's farm one afternoon in November, Carson noticed several does and an 8-pointer milling around, and one skittish buck on the edge of the woods observing the others.
Carson says the 21x12 popped out into the field and filtered behind those does into a small block of timber. He used that window of opportunity to crawl through the field to the backside of another patch of woods and set up 200 yards from where he last saw the buck.
His target buck reappeared from the timber after five minutes trailing a doe with its nose down.
"I waited for him to slow down and put the crosshairs on him at 210 yards. I squeezed off right behind the shoulder, hit him and his back end dropped. He starts running at me and I got another shot off but missed at 50 yards, it took a hard left and disappeared through a worked bean field into a creek bed."
Carson could only locate a ball of deer hair and one blood droplet but got down in a creek and smelled blood and guts. He backed out and the following morning, played hooky from school like any ethical hunter would and arranged for a tracking dog to help further with the recovery. They found Carson's buck 900 yards from the shot halfway under water against a beaver dam.
He also harvested a 184 7/8-inch buck on the third day of Ohio's 2022 archery season with a crossbow that's worthy of recognition. The 16-pointer featured double drop tines, two split brows and a kicker off its back left P2.
Both Buckeye beauties were scored by Buckmasters scorers Toby and Lori Hughes.
— Read Recent Blog! New No. 1 in KS: The Ottawa-County 13-pointer sports a 20 7/8 inch inside spread and tallied 200 2/8 inches by Buckmasters’ yardstick.