Rack Magazine

A funny thing happened on the way to a noontime rendezvous.

The Indiana whitetail Zack Bowling tagged in 2016 got 15 free passes two years earlier, when it was a 4 1/2-year-old with an attitude.

The bowhunter from Indianapolis would’ve shot it in 2015, but opportunity never knocked. He wound up spending more time in a hospital bed than in a deer stand, the result of falling 24 feet while re-positioning the latter.

Zack considers himself a safety harness fanatic. He’s used them religiously since he strapped on his first. On the day he didn’t, things went south.

“I know I should have been better prepared. In fact, I should not have attempted the job,” he admitted. “It was a nice day, though. No wind. And I got careless.

“I had the stand in place and wanted to adjust the ratchet strap one more click, but I accidentally released it instead of tightening it, and the stand and I both fell to the ground.

“I managed to call for help and was flown to a hospital,” he continued. “I suffered a broken arm, wrist, hand, four ribs, plus a collapsed lung and a torn abdominal wall. I spent eight days in the hospital and another eight weeks recuperating at home.”

None the worse for wear, Zack was elated to find the buck’s sheds in early 2016. The antlers were phenomenally bigger — maybe 40 or 50 inches, total — than they were in 2014.

“All natural growth,” he said. “I didn’t feed or use any minerals whatsoever, and far as I know, no one else nearby did either. It was all from good dirt!”

The buck did not live on Zack’s Fountain County property for most of the year. After spending much of the spring, summer and fall on another farm about 21/2 miles distant, it came to Zack’s at the end of October.

The first trail camera photographs of the buck in 2014 and 2015 were both snapped on Oct. 29. In 2016, the first image appeared on Oct. 21. Zack began calling the deer Gore in 2014.

He was hunting with his friend, Cole, who shot a very nice 150-inch buck that collapsed within sight.

“We opted to stay in the stand a bit just to be sure,” he explained. “While we sat there, here comes this big buck that I had been watching, the mainframe 9-pointer I had no intention of taking that year. It never had a name until that day.

“He came up through the woods on his way somewhere, caught a whiff of Cole’s dead buck, no doubt a former rival, and began attacking it. He managed to pick it up from the ground, toss it, and then continued goring it.

“Thus the name,” he said.

“Cole wanted to scare it off, but I was afraid it would leave the county. So we waited until dark before we got down. We still had to scare the buck off the carcass.”

Zack had a chance at Gore a few days after he collected 2016’s first trail cam photo.

“He caught me drawing my bow,” he said. “I felt like an idiot. I should have waited a bit longer before trying.

“I was in a stand a few days after that when Gore pushed a doe past me. I drew my bow, but he presented no target. As the day went on, he chased three more by me. I came to full draw four times without taking a shot.

“On the morning of the Nov. 11, I hunted that same 10 acres without seeing anything. I was going to join a couple of hunting buddies at noon, so I got out of the stand and headed to where we were going to meet,” he said.

“As I was driving down the road, Gore crossed it and ran into an open field in the middle of the day. I pulled over and watched him enter a small 10- to 15-acre plot.

“There were about 5 acres of standing corn there, so I figured he was going in to bed down,” he continued. “I watched him with binoculars as he made a scrape and walked the field’s edge.

“I had permission to hunt that farm, but I’d not done so in a couple of years,” Zack said. “I whipped out my phone and called the landowner just to verify I was still permitted to hunt his farm. There was no problem.

“It was a super windy day, and that rattled the corn stalks more than enough to cover my movements. Plus, it wasn’t all that cold.

“That bit of the farm is shaped like an hourglass. I snuck into the property with the intention of reaching the pinch point in the middle. I figured if Gore came out the way he went in, I would at least get a good look at him.

“When I reached my destination, I found a good place to stand with tall brush behind me to break up my silhouette. Not 15 minutes after I was situated, I saw him coming through the bottom at a pretty good clip. His mouth was open, and he was grunting pretty loudly.

“When he was at 32 yards, I didn’t try to stop him since he was coming straight at me. I shot when he turned broadside at the last second.

“The arrow hit a little far back, probably the liver, still a pretty good shot since he was moving. I watched him run a ways before he laid down in a ditch thick with weeds.

“I decided to circle and approach from a more open direction. That way, I could see if he was dead. When I got close, I saw he was not done, so I put another arrow into his shoulder.

“After the second shot, I watched him run about 15 yards toward some tall thick brush. I then gathered all my stuff and headed to the road.

“I called my buddies who were visiting from Florida and told them I’d shot Gore. They were excited and wanted to get back in there and secure him. After about 20 or 30 minutes, I thought it was safe to go back and look,” he said.

When the guys jumped the buck, they backed out for another five hours. There was an hour of daylight remaining when they returned.

A third arrow ended things.

“It was a crazy day,” Zack said.

This article was published in the March 2018 edition of Rack Magazine. Subscribe today to have Rack Magazine delivered to your home.

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