Early October 190” in OH
By Patrick Dunning
Tyler Stein had a three-year history with this Ohio 21-pointer and a hunch it was bedded on an adjacent property in Tuscarawas County.
He got permission from the landowner to hunt the 40-acre tract, hung a cell camera in early September and got a photo of the 12x9 the first night.
The 30-year-old waited until Oct. 8 and the first major cold front of the 2023 season to make his move. He sealed the deal after three sits with his son’s crossbow.
“I’ve known about this buck for three years, and a lot of other people knew about him,” Tyler told Buckmasters. “I thought I knew where he was, went and talked to the landowner and got permission to go in there. Got him on camera the first night but stayed out the area because I didn’t want to push him out.”
Tyler hunted with a compound bow his first two sits and had an encounter with the buck and six does Saturday evening at 5:30.
“It looked like they were headed my way, but the does kept looking to their left and something spooked them out of there. He came back alone at about 7 p.m. and got to within 40 yards, but it was too dark to take a shot,” Tyler said.
The following morning, Tyler’s target buck was underneath his tree at 20 yards, but foliage on the limb of his tree kept him from slinging an arrow.
He watched the buck freshen a scrape for several minutes before it departed, and later that morning he tore down his lock-on set and moved it 40 yards.
“After I’d seen how far the shot was going to be, I went home, got lunch and sighted in my kid’s crossbow at 45 yards,” Tyler said. “I was back in the stand by 12:30. [There was] no action all day until 6:30 when he came in walking down a fence line to an apple tree and cleaned up all the apples on the ground for 30 minutes or so. He finally cut across that field to where I was, and I made a wide-open shot on him.”
Tyler’s 21-pointer is a mainframe 5x5 with 9 2/8” and 7 6/8” brow tines. Buckmasters master scorer Will Leonard measured this bruiser at 196 7/8 inches in BTR’s irregular category for crossbow bucks.