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Ohio Buck’s Luck Runs Out

Ohio Buck’s Luck Runs Out

By Mike Handley

Justin Bates took two shots, two months apart, at the massive mainframe 8-pointer he tagged in 2017.

He was bowhunting from a blind the first time his and the deer’s paths crossed. The bow’s limbs must have smacked the interior wall, because the arrow flew well over the buck’s back before sticking in the ground 8 feet beyond it.

That wasn’t the first time a Bates tried to kill it. Justin’s dad had the animal in his muzzleloader’s sights the previous season, but the cap snapped when he squeezed the trigger.

Both Bates were hunting the family’s 550 acres in Logan County, Ohio.

Justin’s second encounter with the deer, which a friend had nicknamed Marshawn, came on Dec. 17. In order to keep out of the freezing rain, he took his 12 gauge to a Redneck Blind at the edge of a cut cornfield.

“As soon as I got situated, deer started pouring out of the woods to feed on the corn that had been spilled (during harvest). I could see 35 out of the three windows, and 10 of those were basket-racked bucks,” he told John Phillips, who’s writing the story for Rack magazine.

Marshawn was out there, too, at about 70 yards.

Justin slowly opened a window and gently rested his shotgun barrel on the sill. The buck had come 20 yards closer by the time he was able to squeeze the trigger.

“Marshawn dropped right where he was standing, although I quickly bolted my shotgun and prepared to take a follow-up shot,” he said. “I was shaking so hard that I felt like I’d fall if I tried to get down from my stand and go to my buck.”

When Justin took the buck to his taxidermist, Rick Busse, in Piqua, he learned that a neighbor had also been hunting the deer. He’d nicknamed it High Tower.

Busse photographed the deer and measured it for the BTR. It tallies 162 as a Typical. The two small irregular points contribute less than 3 inches to its score.

— Read Recent Blog! There’s No Place Like Home. Wait … Hunter: John Hatt | The deer tallies 184 4/8 inches on the BTR scale.

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