Rack Magazine

Deer hunters almost never get a second chance at a world-class buck. Here’s why we say ALMOST.

Stoked by trail cam photographs of an enormous buck he’d pulled in early October, Lear McCoy spent a lot of time aloft in 2012, hoping to put his sight pin on the whitetail with sweeping main beams, gnarly bases and backward kicker.

In November, he climbed into a stand overlooking a steep ridge. Right at dusk, the very buck he’d been hoping to see strolled into one of his shooting lanes, offering a 20-yard, broadside shot.

Lear watched his arrow bury up to the fletching right behind the deer’s shoulder. But he never found the animal, despite many hours of looking and even watching the sky for buzzards.

He was the ultimate unhappy camper until he checked a trail camera a couple of weeks later and saw the buck still very much alive.

Despite numerous trips to the woods during the remainder of the season, he never laid eyes on the deer again that year. In the spring, however, a friend found the buck’s sheds and was kind enough to give them to Lear.

Having the sheds fueled his desire to wrap a tag around the buck’s antlers. Even though he never saw the deer during the summer, he was convinced it would eventually travel that same ridge.

The Ohio Valley’s initial major cold front of 2013 hit during the first week of October. The change in temperature was all the coaxing the buck needed to finally pose for one of Lear’s cameras.

Not surprisingly, the buck — now MUCH bigger — returned to the ridge where Lear had shot it the previous season. The hunter couldn’t wait to climb into that same tree when the next cold front arrived.

When temperatures dropped again on Wednesday, Oct. 23, Lear was in his perch. But the buck didn’t show.

The following afternoon, Lear slipped away early from his job in the lumber industry to once again sit in his favorite stand. Much like it did the previous year, his vigil got off to a very slow start.

But Lear was not discouraged by the lack of deer activity.

At sunset, he noticed something on the logging road that wound below his stand. As soon as he saw it was a deer, he recognized the animal’s unique gait and its drop tines.

The buck approached cautiously. Instead of continuing down the logging road, which was pocked with scrapes, it circled downwind of the track, which also put it closer to some cedars.

Eventually, it came to within spitting distance of Lear’s tree and looked up at him.

Lear froze, but the deer, sensing danger, bounded a few steps. When it paused at 30 yards to look back, Lear’s arrow smacked it.

The hunter then watched his lighted nock float away in the sea of cedars.

Lear didn’t pursue it. He slipped out of the woods as quietly as possible, determined not to push his luck and to return the next morning. Waiting wasn’t as easy as thinking about waiting.

For every 10 minutes he spent convincing himself the buck was dead and findable, he spent another half-hour believing it wasn’t.

The next morning, following a sleepless night, Lear headed to work to take care of some pressing issues. Around lunchtime, he took up the trail of his prized buck.

The search lasted a scant 15 minutes. The whitetail had circled about 180 yards to die within 80 of where the arrow stole its breath.

Hunter: Lear McCoy
BTR Score: 194 7/8
Compound Bow
Irregular

– Photos Courtesy Lear McCoy

This article was published in the August 2014 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.

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