Rack Magazine

Do today’s whisper-quiet bows and lightning-fast arrows render this bowhunting tenet obsolete?

If Ryan Stolz hadn’t anticipated his buck’s ducking the string, a phrase that’s rightfully falling out of favor with the (compound) bowhunters who coined it, he might’ve had his mount a whole lot sooner. And he might’ve had more and much better photographs.

But at least he got his deer and will soon see the antlers affixed to a form with glass eyes, albeit with another buck’s hair.

The bowhunter from Mondamin, Iowa, had dreamt about arrowing this whitetail with points aplenty long before he triggered his release on Oct. 1. He first heard about it during the 2011 shotgun season, when it was seen during a man-drive.

“One of the guys saw this buck running with a bunch of does (out of range) and crossing the road onto the neighboring tract. That afternoon, we pushed another stand of timber nearby. Midway through the drive, another guy fired at least five times at the deer from 70 yards,” Ryan said.

He didn’t touch it.

The distinctive buck was next seen during the January 2012 antlerless season. And after that, people saw it everywhere, “as if it were taunting us,” Ryan said.

“I kept close track of all the reported sightings and sort of built a map of where it had been seen,” he continued.

“My dad saw the buck several times. I saw it twice. And one of my buddies nearly hit it one evening when it crossed a road.”

That spring, Ryan and his stepson, Trenton, began looking for the big whitetail’s sheds in earnest. They started searching on the north side of the 80 acres Ryan figured was the buck’s core area. Several hours of scouring the land yielded one small shed.

“Since I didn’t have to work the next day, a Monday, I went back and spent a few more hours,” Ryan said. “As I was searching, I saw a buddy of mine, Marty Carritt, drive by on the road just below me. About an hour later, I got a text message from my stepson at school.

“Marty is the janitor at Trenton’s school. The text was something to the effect: ‘I think these might be the sheds we’re looking for,’ and included a photo of both antlers.

“They certainly were,” Ryan added.

That morning, Marty’s brother-in-law walked out his back door — close to the area Ryan was searching — and found the first shed less than 20 feet from the house. He then called Marty. Together, they made a quick search of the vicinity and found the mate in a nearby hayfield.

“After that, several friends and I set out all kinds of trail cameras on nearby properties. As the buck started to grow his new rack, we were all getting pictures, almost daily,” Ryan said. “The buddy who found the sheds got the best pictures, indicating the buck favored that end of its range, that time of year.

“Of course, Marty had a food plot and water available for the deer all summer long.

“When the 2012 season arrived, I decided to get out there very early. I parked next to a rental house my dad owns and walked up an old trail to a point where I could watch a saddle that deer cross in the mornings. At night, they usually go around the other end of the hill.

“I didn’t see a single deer cross the saddle,” he said. “About 10:30, I crept up to the top of the ridge and sat, watching both sides as I ate a bit of lunch. Later, I moved down the ridge to the far end where the deer usually came through in the evening.

“There, I found a big brushy cedar tree that I could back into for cover and still have a good view of the surrounding hillsides,” he continued.

“For the past three years, I’ve been a believer in ghillie suits. They make me invisible. Nearly. If a buck comes close, but not close enough, I can sometimes move and outflank it to get a shot.

“Eventually, I saw a 9-pointer at the crest of the hill. I recognized it from numerous trail cam photos. While I was watching it, the big deer arrived halfway between us. I’m thinking, Oh … Here we go!”

At that point, the buck was about 50 yards from Ryan, standing perpendicular to the path. If it came down the trail, it would pass within 20 or 25 yards. If it went toward the 9-pointer, the man in the bush suit would never get a shot.

All Ryan could do was wait and hope.

“So the 9-pointer is at the top, the big guy is in the middle, and I was at the bottom of the scene. The big one kept looking up the hill at the 5x4, and neither was moving,” Ryan continued. “I was starting to worry he was going up, so I readied myself to take the 50-yard shot.

“I expected the buck to duck the arrow, but it didn’t. Nevertheless, it flinched at the impact and ran uphill.

“I stood there for about half an hour, worrying about my shot placement, before taking up the trail. I found specks of blood on the fairly tall switchgrass, but I couldn’t find the arrow, at first.

“I lost the trail several times and had to backtrack, which is when I finally came across the arrow. It had blood on it, along with some hair on the blade and the fletching,” he said.

“With no blood to follow, I continued toward a partially picked cornfield, hoping there might be blood and a more identifiable trail in the stubble,” he continued. “But there wasn’t.

“I was debating my next move when the farmer returned to resume harvesting corn, so I decided to watch him for a while. Maybe he’d come across a carcass, or push the deer out of the remaining rows, I thought.

“No such luck."

“Because I had taken the week off to hunt, I went out every day and walked anywhere I could, getting permission where needed to cross fence lines and crop fields.

“When my dad asked me to move an auger for him one of those days, I realized I hadn’t checked his unpicked bean field. As I walked the edge, looking at the waterways and deer trails, I happened to notice a small tree that had been rubbed off to one side,” he said.

When Ryan walked over to get a closer look at the rub, he noticed what looked like a piece of antler sticking out of a nearby brush pile. It was his buck, or its coyote-scavenged remains.

“I called my dad and told him he wouldn’t have to worry about hitting the deer with the combine when he cut the beans,” Ryan smiled.

Hunter: Ryan Stolz
BTR Score: 286 3/8
Compound Bow
Irregular

– Photos by Ed Waite

This article was published in the August 2014 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.

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