Kentucky Bowhunter Tags 192-Inch Velvet Buck After 3-Year Wait
In early September, Kentucky bowhunter Jonathon Stuart finally caught up to a magnificent 6 ½-year-old whitetail buck. Stuart had a three-year history with the deer and plenty of trail camera photos. He’s hunted the property for about seven years and knows it well.
“Deer hunting is not just a passion but a way of life,” Stuart tells Outdoor Life. “I love tracking and harvesting certain deer at their peak maturity.”
Kentucky’s archery season opened on Sept. 2 this year, and Stuart put in the time. On Sept. 8, his fifth straight day of hunting, things finally came together. It was sunny and 85 degrees with a northwest wind. Stuart checked the wind direction and headed to an observation stand he’d hung a few days prior.
The area is mostly flat ground with ag fields. Stuart was hunting on the edge of a small block of timber with a large soybean field in front. An overgrown fencerow with a cornfield was off to the left.
“I hung a setup on the edge of the beans on opening day to locate him,” he says. “I figured out he was using the tree line between the corn and beans during daylight hours, bedding on different ends using the wind to his advantage.”
The afternoon hunt started slow. While he waited, Stuart thought about his previous encounter with the buck.
“The first time I saw him, he was nearly 400 yards away and kept his distance,” Stuart recalls.
As the sun burned lower on the horizon, deer started moving. They eased into the soybean fields and started feeding. Squirrels barked and blue jays chirped in the distance. A doe walked in behind Stuart while several bucks fed out in front. Then the giant whitetail he’d been searching for emerged from the overgrown fencerow about 150 yards away.
“I instantly knew he was the largest deer I had ever seen,” Stuart said. “It took him nearly three hours to close the distance. He fed and bedded multiple times, making me worry if he would reach me before dark.”
With only 30 minutes of shooting light remaining, the deer bedded down in a sprayer track just 70 yards away. But then two smaller bucks approached the buck and forced him to stand. The buck walked straight toward Stuart and stopped only eight yards away.
Stuart drew back, anchored, and took the slightly quartering-to shot. It connected and the deer went down. After the hunt, he received help from his wife, son, and close friends to remove the deer from the field. Back at home, Stuart green scored the buck at 192 inches.
“They couldn’t believe how big he was,” he says. “We had guessed he would be around 170 inches. We were way off. This is the largest deer I’ve ever seen, so I’m honored to have tagged him. Some people hunt their whole lives and never encounter a deer like this.”
A skilled hunter, dedicated conservationist, and advocate for ethical practices. Respected in the hunting community, he balances human activity with environmental preservation.