Rack Magazine

After pining for time to go hunting, this Ohio man was only too happy to end his season the first time he climbed into a stand.

First, Harry Boyd misplaced his truck keys. He searched for hours, systematically going through every pocket of every piece of clothing he owned. He pillaged the laundry, both clean and dirty. He tore the house up, sank his fingers between sofa cushions, rearranged the furniture as a man will do when he needs to get to his deer stand.

They were in the truck, the last place he looked.

The thing is, Harry was desperate to get to his stand. It was already Nov. 13, 2013, and the avid Ohio bowhunter had not been able to go afield even once.

But the misplaced keys weren’t his only problem that day.

He had driven halfway to his favorite spot when he realized he’d forgotten the empty memory cards for his camera, so he turned around to collect them. It was 1:30 when he finally arrived at the 120-acre farm.

He parked his truck where deer couldn’t see it, hoisted a sack of red delicious and Gala apples the size of softballs, and dumped those on the ground. Then he pulled the memory card from the trail camera, hoping to see at least one shooter buck.

Harry had to work during the rut’s peak, which began around Halloween. Or at least that’s when bucks began chasing does. He hoped that the two-week delay might mean the does were ready to stand.

All Harry’s time had been consumed throughout the summer and early fall. He was involved with a big construction project in Barnesville, and he hadn’t even had time for more than an occasional quick peek at his property.

Scouting? Forget it. Usually, he would have begun patterning bucks well ahead of time, checking his trail cameras faithfully, the kind of due diligence that normally alerted him to the presence of a desirable buck.

But he’d gone to his farm only six times all year and seen a few “nice ones,” though nothing to raise his pulse.

When, on Nov. 13, Harry took a break from working, he was eager to look at his trail cam images. He carried a digital reader with him to his stand, 22 miles from home, and went photo by photo through months of activity.

“It was maybe 2:15 p.m. when I got to the picture of a very impressive buck on the digital card, and I remember that I sat up real straight at that moment,” Harry recalls.

The property gets a lot of traffic since it offers deer 110 acres of thick woods, including nut-bearing favorites like white oaks and hickory trees, plus water and green fields.

“It consists of a valley with two hilltops and a spring-fed stream that runs through the valley,” he says. “I have 4 acres in green fields, and 2013 was the first year I used Whitetail Institute products. These included beets, winter peas and oats, so that deer would come to eat in late summer rather than just early summer.”
Over the years, Harry had seen hundreds of does that fed on the property, constantly.

“They know it’s a haven, with no pressure. There’s no gun hunting — only archery — allowed on this place,” he says. “The does don’t run, so the bucks don’t run. Therefore, the bucks are relaxed.”

When he arrived at his tree, Harry climbed the 12 feet to his platform supporting the homemade deer blind. The stand overlooks a saddle on a ridge.

Once aloft, he began reviewing his trail cam images. He went through 1,500 photos on the card before stopping at one of a mouthwatering buck with a big doe.

“I realized it had stayed with that same doe all night. I called my wife, Holly, and told her I had seen a photo of a really nice one. She said, ‘You can have that buck. Did you pray and ask for that deer?’ I said no.”

Holly told Harry, “Why don’t you try it?”

Harry sat for a while, and he says, “I asked God for help.”

Within 15 minutes of opening his eyes, a big doe came out of the woods into the open. She was walking calmly and slowly, and right behind her, also calm and slow, was the buck with the giant rack from photo number 1,501.

“I slowly poked my head out of the blind, watching as she came the way deer always come through the saddle. The buck was grunting, and when I could fully see it, it was 9 yards away from me, staring straight ahead at her. That deer was licking its chops.”

It felt to Harry like his heart was beating in his eyes. He didn’t think he was going to pull it off. He prayed just to be able to make the shot. And as soon as the buck walked past my tree, he triggered his crossbow.

He thought the bolt entered the buck just forward of its hind leg. The animal fell, got up, and ran into a tree. When it went down, it broke the arrow. Orange fletching was protruding when it left.

“Those massive antlers were hitting trees, catching on branches as the buck ran away from me. I didn’t think anything could run that fast,” he said.

Harry sat back down, depressed and convinced he’d gut-shot the deer.

He was the best deer, and I made the worst shot, Harry chided himself.

“Later, I found out that the bolt came out his opposite shoulder, after hitting the liver and one lung,” he said.
Harry gave the wounded buck a half-hour to fall before walking to the arrow fragment 15 yards away.

“I walked another 30 yards and saw sporadic, good, red blood, and told myself, Whew! Not a gut shot.”

He then called some friends who are good trackers.

“Better than good,” he emphasized. “They’re like bloodhounds. I’m talking about my buddies for 25 years, Dan and Mike Lemly and Dana and Anthony O’Neil. In 2010, I had something similar, and the same guys came and tracked it for a mile. I couldn’t believe it.”

He marked the trail from his stand to the buck’s position and to where he left off searching. He used all the articles he had: gloves, hat, arrows and string.

When the tracking posse arrived, they flicked on their lights and fanned out to search.

“They found a couple of blood spots, and then, 20 yards on, the blood trail got really heavy. At 30 yards, there was my buck, on the ground,” he said.

“Whether anyone believes it or not, that deer was delivered to me,” he added. “God had a hand in that hunt.”

The deer was hauled to Dan Lemly’s house, as he has a hoist in his garage.

“It’s traditional; we always go there. When we got my buck up in the air and the guys were looking at it, no one could believe how big it was. The guys were starting in on butchering the buck, but I had to go home and change clothes. I said, ‘Just do me a favor. Please don’t anyone mess up that cape.’”

By the time Harry returned, 30 people were holding a party around the skinning shed.

Hunter: Harry Boyd
BTR Score: 213 2/8
Crossbow
Irregular

– Photos courtesy Harry Boyd

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

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