Ohio Bowhunter Tags Giant Buck on Small Property

Chez Martin quietly climbed into his ladder stand on Oct. 18, long before morning’s first light. Martin, 40, hunts a private 60-acre tract adjacent to a small public hunting area in Guernsey County, Ohio, east of Columbus.

The rolling hill terrain features high ridges, steep draws, hardwoods, and thick cover that big whitetail bucks love, especially during the pre-rut.

“I went to the stand very early—at 3 a.m.,” says Martin, who lives in Milledgeville. “It was cool with a north wind, in the low 60s, and the temperature had dropped about 10 degrees from the previous day. I was on top of a ridge, a flat corridor between a bedding area and a nearby CRP field, about 100 yards above a dry creek bed.

“There were scrapes on the ridge, and bucks were in pre-rut. I wanted to be in that stand and settled long before deer started moving that morning.”

Soon after daylight, Martin started seeing deer from his stand. A small buck came down a trail, but acted skittish. Then a couple does below the ridge started blowing, and Martin spotted a coyote, which made the does and young buck nervous.

Time passed and a few more does showed, feeding on the ridge. A pair of does bedded 40 yards from Martin. Another doe came running through the area, followed by a young 8-pointer. More does and young bucks moved around the ridge from Martin.

“It was all happening so fast, and deer were moving everywhere,” said Martin, a home inspector for Premier Properties, owned by Lou Willard, the famous former Ohio State running back.

Martin was hyper alert and soon spotted a tree shaking violently in a bedding area near the CRP 70 yards away.

“It was a good buck, because I could occasionally see a tine,” said Martin. “But I couldn’t get a good look at the deer behind the tree, though I thought he would work closer to me.”

Suddenly, the buck showed in a thick area 30 yards from Martin. But as the buck neared an open shooting lane, a doe appeared right below Martin, preventing him from moving his bow to avoid spooking the doe.

“I was above him in my tree, higher up on the ridge, and he turned to look at some does and a small buck,” said Martin. “He was broadside to me at 25 yards and that’s when I could draw, anchor, and release.”

Martin saw the lighted-nock arrow hit the buck perfectly. He heard it strike the buck too. His arrow with a Grim Reaper mechanical broadhead passed completely through the deer.

But the buck didn’t move.

“I think he was so focused on the small bucks and does nearby that he just stood there, like nothing had happened,” Martin said. “I saw some blood and saw my arrow [buried in the ground], but he’s just standing there at 25 yards.”

That’s when Martin’s big buck snort-wheezed at a small buck near Martin’s tree.

“The bigger buck is quartering away, and I knocked another arrow, drew, anchored, and released, hitting him a second time at about 40 yards, the arrow completely burying deep in the deer past the fletchings.”

The buck ran after the second arrow but not fast, disappearing into a thick area that Martin couldn’t see into.

Martin sat in his stand for a while, surrounded by does and small bucks feeding and chasing one another.

“I sat there and prayed I made good shots on the buck, then I called my wife Heather [a nurse] and told her what was happening,” Martin said.

Soon, the deer around Martin’s stand moved away. He came down and searched for a blood trail, but found none. Martin walked out of the woods and met his wife. They returned to Martin’s stand and began a grid-search to find the buck.

“It was rough in that thick cover, with downed trees, logs, and steep terrain, but Heather is a trooper and we stayed searching,” Martin remembers. “Finally, I noticed something unusual under some thick tree branches and saw a half-buried deer, my buck, its rack between a couple of logs. There was no blood on the ground, though the broadheads did well, causing lots of internal bleeding.”

The buck had only gone about 80 yards from Martin’s stand, but with no blood trail and dense cover, locating the downed animal was difficult.

Martin’s buck weighed 250 pounds.

Getting the buck out of the deep ridge area was also challenging. They field-dressed the buck and used a cart to move the 250-pound animal about 500 yards to their vehicle.

The buck has 22-inch long main beams with 6-inch circumference measurements at the bases. The 10-pointer has a 19-inch inside spread with lots of mass and has been green-scored at 165 inches.

Interestingly, it isn’t the biggest buck Martin has tagged. In 2018, he shot a 175-inch 10-pointer with his bow in a nearby hunting spot. He’s a taxidermist and has mounted both bucks.

“I looked at the buck’s teeth and he’s not that old, maybe just 3.5-years,” Martin says. “I know he could have grown bigger in the next few years, but I only hunt small woodlots. They’re not sprawling land holdings, so when a good buck comes within bow range, I’m smart to take him because I may never see him again.”