Zack Hounestine scored his biggest buck last season without ever firing a shot. The 37-year-old shop foreman didn’t even hunt whitetails in 2024, testament to his willingness to learn the ropes of fatherhood.
Even so, his unplanned taxidermy bill would’ve paid for a lot of diapers.
The new father from Ashville, Ohio, took his infant boy with him to the Pick’em Up Joe coffee company about 7:00 Saturday morning, Nov. 23. There, he met and enjoyed a few cups with the retired founder of the trailer repair company where he works.
An hour later, Zack and the kid were on their way home when he spotted two trucks in a neighbor’s 12-acre cut cornfield. A couple of guys were photographing two bucks on the ground, a few feet apart.
Only one of the bucks was dead, however.
The men had seen the pair of whitetails, antlers locked, from the road. The larger of the animals was alive, but the smaller 9-pointer — maybe 130 inches — was dead weight. The guys managed to saw off a couple of points to free the survivor, but it was too stressed and weak to remain standing.
Zack, who has permission to hunt the ground, called the game warden for Pickaway County to explain the situation and get permission to put down the deer, but the officer was too busy to respond and assess things. He asked them to call the sheriff’s department.
The sheriff wasn’t convinced the deer was hopeless, so he wouldn’t dispatch it. He also admonished them not to do it before leaving.
When the animal hadn’t moved after an hour had passed, the neighbor called the sheriff again, and was told to give it another two hours.
“All the buck could do was slowly swivel its head, kind of like those (automated) deer decoys they use to catch poachers,” Zack said. “It really got put through the ringer.
“When we caped the deer, we found a puncture wound through the left ribcage. It was all bruised up, too,” he added.
Meanwhile, Zack went to a friend’s house.
Before he went home, the buck had finally stood and walked very close to his own house, tripping the Hounestines’ Ring doorbell.
As soon as Zack arrived, he took his German shorthaired pointer, Tango, to a nearby creek. They walked for nearly two hours, looking for the deer. After calling it quits, they returned to where they entered the creek bottom, and Zack spotted the deer 20 yards from their point of entry.
“Tango and I had just turned the wrong way,” he said. “When we went in, we turned to the left. If we’d turned right, we’d have walked right up to it.”
Zack called the game warden, but the officer, again, was too busy to come out and verify the death. The sheriff, also, couldn’t come. A state trooper wound up driving out to issue the salvage tag.
When word spread about the deer’s demise, a friend of a coworker sent Zack three trail camera images taken at a farm a half-mile distant.
Before taking the antlers to be measured, Zack returned to the field to look for one of the points the rescuers had sawed off. It took him almost four hours. He got the other one from the landowner’s son.
Since both points could be placed in their original positions perfectly, their lengths are included in the final tally of 206 6/8 inches. Buckmasters master scorers Toby Hughes and Will Leonard did the honors.