Kentucky Gains New Xbow Record and Runner-up
By Mike Handley
Accustomed to calling his own shots, Tim Hannah stepped out of his comfort zone on Nov. 7 to put his faith in an older buddy who wanted badly to re-introduce him to the opportunities available to hunters at Kentucky's sprawling Fort Knox military base.
His friend, Tom, had already shot his 2024 buck, so he would be loaded for does.
It was raining hard when Tom picked him up well before daylight. Tom had orchestrated the whole trip and helped him acquire all the right permits and disability documents for the hunt.
"When we got there, I didn't want to get out of the truck," admitted the hunter from Hodgenville, a hamlet about 40 minutes south of the base. "I mean it was a regular monsoon.
"I'd never been there; didn't know where we were going," he added. "The last time I'd hunted Fort Knox was when I was a little kid. I usually just bowhunt alone around home."
Tom helped him set up a ground blind in the dark, so Tim had no idea what the terrain looked like until after sunrise. The blind was set back in the woods off what might have been a food plot.
He thinks the rain helped mask the noise they made, as well as their scent. To further help disguise the smell of old wet hunter, Tim raked the ground beneath him to expose fresh earth.
He saw only a few squirrels when the day brightened, not nearly as many as one would think.
Tim grew bored quickly. His clothes were wet, and he was chilled. And, to top it off, he wasn't happy with his spot. Soon, he began spending more time on his phone than he did peering out and looking for deer.
"I'm a loner, I guess," he said. "I hunt by myself mostly, and I like to move around and play the wind. I don't use a lot of stuff either. I'm not the type to rub cedar sap on my ears or use a lot of gadgets."
When he did glance up once, he saw a medium-sized 8-pointer. It was too far to shoot, so his attention waned. He wanted to move.
The next time he looked out the window, he saw another buck with antlers large enough for him to immediately avert his gaze to avoid getting the shakes. This deer was going to come into range, so Tim steeled himself.
"You look one time, and that's it," he said. "I learned that lesson the hard way."
The next time the 47-year-old's head rose, so did the crossbow, and the 25-yard pin soon found the animal's shoulder.
The buck didn't run far.
"I really had no idea how big it was until I got over there," he said. "After I cried a little and thanked God for sending me that deer, I called Tom. I was tore up from Sunday.
"I get buck fever like that," he added. "I guess the day I don't, I just won't hunt anymore.
"When Tom got there and saw the buck, he looked at me and said, 'Do you know what you've killed?' I guess I didn't. He told me, 'That's a monster. You've won the lottery!'" Tim said.
"I don't know anything about scoring, but Tom does. I'm just a country boy who likes to hunt and fish, except maybe during the rain. I was going to sit in the truck, and I would've if Tom hadn't wanted to set up the blind while it was still dark so things could settle down before the sun came up."
The antlers' size was even more impressive because of the buck's relatively small body.
"We didn't weigh it, but he wasn't very heavy," Tim said. "He wasn't even close to 200 pounds (live)."
That Tom had an exempt pass to use a fourwheeler made loading easier. After field-dressing the deer, they tied it to the vehicle and drug it to the road. On that day, they were able to check in the deer by phone instead of taking it to the hunt control office.
Since state regulations prohibited them from transporting the deer across county lines, they took it to a friend's garage and skinned it, and then took the cape to a local taxidermist to finish caping the head and have the antlers sawed off the skull.
Tim currently has five deer heads hanging in his home. His wife has told him that if another comes in, one of the existing ones will have to go. He's already decided the mount with a broken point will be leaving.
"I can't believe I killed that deer," Tim sighs. "Them pictures don't make justice of it."
Dale Weddle scored the 26-pointer for Buckmasters, arriving at 226 1/8 inches, a new No. 2 for its category. Had Tim shot it a couple of months earlier, it would've been the state record for a very short time. The No. 1 spot was seized in September by Mark Peterson, who was hunting in Henry County.
Dale's story about the hunt will appear in a future issue of Buckmasters.