Little Mossy Horns Sets County Record in Ohio
By Mike Handley
Alex Wright wasn’t surprised when his uncle said he couldn’t hunt where a trail camera had photographed the obscenely huge buck the man had reluctantly passed up twice.
The 35-year-old tire builder from Stryker, Ohio, had been monitoring the deer for three years. Trail cam images revealed it was a 12-pointer with matching kickers in 2022, a 14-pointer with extras in 2023, and even bigger in 2024.
Alex burned his tag on a handsome 10-pointer early in ’23, but he got to see the big one before it dropped its antlers, so he knew it had survived the season.
His uncle had actually encountered the beast two times. The first came during a man-drive, when the man was armed with a shotgun; the buck was too far. The next time, he was carrying a rifle, and the animal was too close.
When Alex headed out on Oct. 7, he avoided the setup for which his uncle had claimed dibs. He chose instead to walk down a railroad bed and back up against a forked tree so he could watch a soybean field. The lay of the land put him about a foot and a half above the tops of the beans.
It was difficult not to think about the deer that had dominated family discussions.
“It’s crazy to think about how much the buck grew from one year to the next, about how it would’ve never reached this size if my uncle had shot it,” Alex said.
When the animal stepped in front of a trail cam in July 2024, Alex could tell it was going to be a bruiser. The budding rack was already far thicker than it had been the previous seasons.
“The deer was coming to the corn every other day. I also use water softener salt and Lucky Buck mineral,” he said.
Soon after Alex got comfortable against the tree, the deer popped out of the beans at 150 yards. When it was within 45, he squeezed his crossbow’s trigger. As often happens with crossbows, the buck jumped the string — or leaned low and forward — and the bolt hit farther back from where it was intended to go.
The deer immediately spun and ran into a nearby cornfield.
Alex and his father took up the trail, but they found neither blood nor bolt and decided against going into the corn.
The next day, Alex prowled the stalks for six hours before calling a buddy who had a drone. Still no luck.
On Oct. 9, 40 hours after the shot, Alex and four buddies grid-searched the nearest woodlot and found the deer almost immediately. Alex was walking the railroad bed, looking for sign indicating where the animal might’ve crossed. His friends were in the woods, 30 yards apart.
Alex had called the neighboring landowners, who were harvesting that week, to ask them to be on the lookout for his deer.
News of the discovery was bittersweet for Alex’s uncle.
“He said, ‘I knew you were going to get that deer,’” he added. “He and my father have always said I’m a buck magnet.”
Buckmasters scorers Toby and Lori Hughes measured the rack at 223 4/8 inches. Mass accounted for 20% of the deer’s tally, and the irregular growth — the kickers it had carried for at least three years, along with the forward-drooping, Ol Mossy Horns*-type stickers — totaled nearly 70 inches.
The 27-pointer, Alex’s second record book deer, is the largest crossbow-felled Irregular ever recorded from Williams County. It ranks 33rd statewide.
*Ol Mossy Horns is the name given to the former world-record Nebraska buck arrowed by Del Austin in 1962.
Photos courtesy of Alex Wright