Had it not been for a forgotten trail camera and an impulsive decision to hunt from a stepchild of a stand, 19-year-old Trevor Bowling might still be trying to break the whitetail world’s 150-inch milestone.
The fresh high school graduate from Hamilton, Ohio, had come close to attaining that goal prior to the 2025 season, but he’d seen only one buck in the decade after collecting his first deer that would make the grade, and a neighbor wound up shooting it. His best to that point had fallen just shy of the mark.
Less than an inch.
He’s now revised that goal considerably upward.
Trevor first became aware of the buck he shot in 2025 in May, when his father, Tom, alerted him about a trail camera he’d spotted while riding a colt through the woods.
Several months earlier, Trevor had been moving cameras around the property to help pattern a buck for his mother. He’d forgotten about one of the units, and it had sat for months, filling its memory card until the batteries died.
It was so overtaken by foliage that his father almost rode right past it.
That the memory card was chock full of images was no surprise. The very last photo showed a buck’s face peering through the foliage, directly into the lens. Although very early in the antler-growing process, the whitetail’s left side was clearly going to have multiple beams.
“It’s a pretty odd story, but I’d have had no idea this buck existed had we not found that camera,” Trevor said.
“We watched the buck grow all summer long,” he continued. “It just kept getting bigger and bigger. It would even watch us practicing almost every day, sometimes from as close as 20 yards. It was really cool to see that deer up close and personal.”
Trevor and his father shoot their bows near an outdoors arena, flanked on one side by a wooded area.
“I’d never had a deer like this come through,” he said. “I see mostly 120- and 130-inch bucks, except for one the neighbor shot that scored in the 170s and one I shot that measured 149 and change.”
Three weeks before Ohio’s ’25 archery season opened, the buck became completely nocturnal. Only when Trevor was in Indiana, cementing his upcoming new job as a hunting guide, did the animal appear while the sun was shining.
Tom saw it and called his son.
Since the buck had gone off grid for almost a month, never stepping in front of either of his trail cams, Trevor had no idea where best to hunt it. He’d even moved the cameras multiple times, hoping to gain information.
On the evening of Oct. 2, he simply threw the dice and went to a stand — a double ladder — that hadn’t been hunted in two years.
“It’s set up right next to a trail, like a bow stand where you face the tree,” he said.
At 7:00, Trevor saw a small 6-pointer approaching, the same buck the double-beamed one frequently accompanied. Sure enough, the big one was in its wake.
Both deer, however, turned toward the neighboring land without offering a shot. He’s pretty sure the bucks were bedding on the adjacent property, which isn’t hunted.
Trevor returned to the same ladder the next day. Right on cue, the bull of the woods appeared at 7:15, that time within 18 yards of the young and eager bowhunter.
The 6-pointer now travels alone.
Scott Beam measured the 18-pointer for Buckmasters, arriving at 220 3/8 inches. The mainframe 5x5 is impressive, but the left side’s irregular points make the antlers truly jaw-dropping. Those alone account for more than 51 inches of its tally.
You can bet Trevor will be passing his phone around at deer camp as he begins his career as a hunting guide in a neighboring state. He’s always wanted a career in the outdoors, and the new gig, his first, is set to begin this fall in Madison, Indiana.
“I’m not mechanically inclined, not handy, and I don’t want to go to college,” he said. “I also have no interest in training horses (which is what his father does).”
His father took him on a guided hunt in South Carolina when he was 14. “That’s when I decided what I wanted to do with my life,” he said.
Trevor began hunting with a Red Ryder BB gun when he was 3. By the time he was 6 or 7, he was accompanying his dad on deer hunts. He took his first deer at age 9.
Deer-wise, he might have run out of rungs on his ladder.
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