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Third Time’s the Charm
By Ed Waite
It was bitterly cold during the 2013 Ohio late muzzleloader season, but Scott Beam was determined to sit tight until dark. Hunting from a ground blind on his 75-acre farm in the west-central portion of the Buckeye State, Scott was sheltered from the wind. But it was the kind of cold that didn’t need wind to make a hunter miserable.
“About 20 minutes before dark, a huge buck entered the field,” Scott said. “It stood broadside at 40 yards, so I grabbed my muzzleloader and threaded the barrel out one of the windows.”
With the buck so close, Scott was being extra careful not to bump anything and to move very slowly. When he finally got the gun settled, he reached up and pulled back the hammer. That’s when he realized something wasn’t quite right.
“It was so cold, the hammer wouldn’t latch,” he said. “I thought about just releasing the hammer and firing the gun that way, but the scope made it impossible to hold back the hammer and aim at the same time.”
There was nothing for Scott to do but sit and watch as the buck ambled across the field and out of sight.
The remainder of January was equally cold, so Scott only hunted a few times during the final weeks of the late archery season.
Over the summer, he shipped his muzzleloader to the factory for a checkup, and nothing was wrong.
As the weeks passed, Scott’s disappointment turned to anticipation.
“At the start of the 2014 season, I was in a ladder stand in the 6-acre woodlot on the farm,” he said. “It was windy, but I stayed in place until almost dark. I hadn’t seen or heard anything all evening, so I decided to drive around the farm to see if anything was moving.”
As he rounded the corner of a hay field that borders the property, there was the giant buck. It was leaving the little patch of woods where Scott had his treestand.
“I pulled up in front of him to block his progress,” Scott said. “I stopped, and he stopped, and we looked one another in the eye.”
The buck was as massive as the previous year, carrying at least 14 points and even more mass.
To add insult to injury, the buck turned and walked back into the same woods. That was the only time he saw it that year.
It was a long off-season after that. Where had the buck gone? Had it been hit by a car or taken by another hunter? Surely he would have heard if a neighbor had shot the buck.
The 2015 archery season opened on a good note.
“One of the first times I was in the stand, I caught a glimpse of the buck sneaking through the woodlot,” Scott said. “He was 60 yards away and too far for a shot, but it confirmed he was still alive.”
The rest of the bow season passed without another sighting. Scott said the property has several thick honeysuckle stands, and the boundary fence lines are thick with it. The honeysuckle provides great cover for the deer and also hinders sightings and makes bowhunting difficult.
“I really wanted to take the buck with my bow, but the opportunity never presented itself,” he said. “To be honest, I’d have been after that buck in rock season if there was such a thing. I wasn’t going to pass him up with a firearm if I got the chance.”
Scott hunted a different location near the weed field on the first day of the 2015 gun season. He caught a glimpse of the buck about 300 yards away, hurrying along the fence line just before shooting light.
He continued to hunt every day, but east winds had muted deer movement. They finally shifted on Thursday, so Scott arranged to leave work and head to the stand.
“I had some fresh doe-in-heat urine, so I sprayed the weeds as I walked to my stand,” he said. “When I got close, I picked out a fluffy weed and soaked it in the doe pee. I hoped the wind would carry that scent into the field.”
Scott settled in the permanent blind and started to watch. It wasn’t long before the big buck suddenly emerged from the field and headed straight for the fluffy weed head.
“I once again shouldered the muzzleloader, confident it wouldn’t malfunction this time,” he said. “He was at 35 yards when I took the shot.”
When the smoke cleared, the buck was piled up by the scented weed.
“There I sat with this huge deer that was much too big for me to move, even after I field-dressed it,” Scott said. “I called my wife, and she in turn called her brother, who was more than happy to help.”
The pair showed up a half hour later and drove right into the field to the edge of the woods where they were able to load him up.