As far as Brady Jenkins is concerned, his last conversation with his departed dad was unspoken. He got the message, even without words.
After the Aug. 29 loss of his father, Ron, from Washington Court House, Ohio, lost his enthusiasm for deer hunting. He mourned for more than two months.
When his wife learned he wouldn’t have to work the afternoon of Nov. 4, she begged Brady to spend time in the woods, if nothing more than to improve his mood. That meant the 47-year-old real estate agent would have to borrow a crossbow from a coworker, since his own had come apart the last time he’d shot it.
“My heart just wasn’t in it,” he admitted. “I’d lost my hunting partner, and it wasn’t going to be the same.”
The Fayette County property he hunts has three stands and trail cameras in place, all in a central line of trees flanked by CRP and an agricultural field. Choosing which to hunt was a discussion he’d had with his father since he was a child.
“I’d always ask Dad, ‘Where do I need to be?’ and he’d tell me,” Brady said.
On that day, he’d have to roll the dice himself, painfully aware there was going to be no guidance. He was wrong about that, however.
As he was entering the property with the crossbow he’d picked up that morning, his phone began vibrating in his chest pocket. He was receiving a notification from one of his cellular cameras.
When he looked, the message came from the “blind” setup. There was no image of a deer or anything else — unusual — but the notification definitely came from The Blind camera.
“That’s my sign,” he realized.
Brady had been in the blind an hour and 20 minutes when a doe ran out of a nearby ditch. He then saw a buck pop out at 150 yards.
“I thought it had cornstalks in its antlers,” he said. “Sunlight was glistening off its rack.”
The buck followed 30 yards behind the doe to within 65 yards. At 4:40, Brady took the shot with his crossbow. He’d tried to stop the moving buck, but it paid no mind whatsoever to his grunting and rattling. As the animal approached the last clear shooting lane, the bolt struck it far from the vitals.
At last light, Brady found the bolt caked with blood and hair.
Rather than take up the trail that night, he, his brother and the man who’d loaned him his crossbow returned the next morning. When Brady got home, he began researching outcomes of bad arrow hits. Judging from the blood on his arrow, he felt good about his chances for recovery.
The search lasted all of 15 minutes, since the deer had managed to travel only 65 yards before its check-engine light came on.
When the local butcher called to say the deer was processed, Brady arrived to see between 25 and 30 onlookers gathered around his antlers.
“We live in a small town, and word spreads quickly,” he laughed. Five of the gawkers had trail camera images of the buck. One gentleman even had its sheds from the previous year.
“It was a fun experience,” he said.
Toby and Lori Hughes scored the rack for Buckmasters, arriving at 217 5/8 inches. The 26-pointer fell into the irregular category. His butcher and taxidermist agreed the buck was 7 1/2 years old.
His biggest buck prior to the ’24 season was a 140-inch 8-pointer.