The Early Bird Gets the Buck!
By Patrick Dunning
Buckmasters Master Scorer Lori Hughes is already tagged out for Ohio’s 2023-24 season, having just taken the state’s #4 spot among women in BTR’s semi-irregular category for crossbow after harvesting this 15-point stud in Marion County.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife named Wyandot, Hardin and Marion counties as CWD surveillance areas and opened the state’s 2023 archery season in those counties on Sept. 9th to monitor local deer populations for the disease.
Ms. Lori and her husband Toby, also a BTR master scorer, were doing a little whitetail monitoring of their own and identified this buck last spring on their 25-acre riverfront property.
“Normally I don’t start seeing deer until late October, but this year there were bucks here all summer using our river bottom as a travel corridor,” Toby told Buckmasters. “This was the biggest buck I had on camera. We’d seen it all through the growing season since it had knuckles in velvet. It disappeared on Aug. 1st for a month and a half and showed up on camera again Sept. 17.”
Lori is new to archery hunting but by no means a slouch behind the trigger. Her 172 6/8-inch BTR buck from 2021 still reigns as Ohio’s largest female-taken Perfect in the BTR’s blackpowder category and sits at the #2 spot in the world among females as well.
She practiced with her crossbow throughout August and felt confident heading afield. By the time her target buck was in range and broadside, Toby had barely whispered the yardage to her when she released her bolt.
“When we saw this guy coming down the river, I had to hurry up and get ready,” Lori said.
Toby added, “As soon as I whispered the yardage in her ear she racked that thing and pulled the trigger before I could even get the whole sentence out of my mouth.”
This is Lori’s biggest buck to date and her first deer with archery equipment.
Buckmasters master scorer Will Leonard made the three-hour drive from Pennsylvania to the Hughes’ property following Lori’s harvest, bringing a box of donuts to celebrate the occasion.
Will measured Lori’s Marion County 15-pointer at 183 2/8 inches.
“Our motto is we don’t just score big bucks, we kill ’em,” Toby said.