Big Buck 411 Blog

Far from Secret

Far from Secret

By Mike Handley

Imagine waking up to see your best-kept secret — not just word of it, but actual photos — plastered all over Facebook.

That actually happened to Matthew Brunswick, a 35-year-old K9 officer for the Hancock County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Department. Afterward, he could only feign ignorance.

The great revelation occurred in late October 2020, when a cell-phone-wielding motorist posted photographs of the colossal and nocturnal whitetail the deputy had been hoping to catch off-guard during his upcoming vacation. The deer was caught mid-stride, crossing a road.

Matthew was sick.

“When the news spread, I knew there was going to be competition. In no time flat, new ground blinds were popping up everywhere.

“Clearly, other people were seeing the deer. I just played it off like I didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “I had a strong feeling the deer was going to be shot, though.”

Going into the 2020 season, Matthew found himself with one less property to hunt. That’s why he acquired a new piece of ground, nearly 20 acres he’d admired while driving a backroad last summer. He gained permission by knocking on the landowners’ door, which still amazes him.

On July 3, he retrieved a trail camera photograph of a giant whitetail on the new land. He was so thrilled that he set up a second cam. His next photo of the buck came five days later, and the time stamp read 10:30 a.m. That was the first and last daytime image he would get of the deer he nicknamed Moose.

Last fall, he’d set aside 18 days to get the job done (two weeks after the Facebook photos surfaced). He hung a stand 22 feet high near a woods trail where a blown-down tree diverted deer traffic.

He connected on the afternoon of Nov. 5, halfway through his “rut-cation,” and he was shocked when the antlers were scored for the BTR. They tallied an even 252 inches

“Because of its size, some people have claimed it was a high-fence deer. But I live on a cop’s salary. There’s no way I could buy such a deer,” he said.

The full story of his hunt will appear this year in Rack magazine.

–Photo by Kyle Powell

— Read Recent Blog! Ohio’s New Recurve Record:A BTR score of 201 4/8 inches makes it the largest ever felled in Ohio by an archer shooting a recurve bow.

Copyright 2024 by Buckmasters, Ltd.

Copyright 2020 by Buckmasters, Ltd