Five months before Joshua-Paul Tully and wife Jennifer purchased his late grandfather’s property in northeastern Ohio, the 35-year-old businessman took their oldest daughter deer hunting there, hoping she’d come to view it as he had many years earlier.
Joshua-Paul’s love of the small parcel blossomed under similar circumstances, in deer stands, under his Grandpa’s wing.
“Back then, the farm didn’t seem like much to anyone else — just trees, fields and some overgrown pasture. But to me, it became sacred,” he said. “It was where my love for hunting, family and tradition took root.
“I remember my first hunt with Grandpa like it was yesterday. Six inches of snow covered the ground, and the cold bit at my lungs the moment I stepped outside,” he remembered. “Grandpa’s old truck rattled into the driveway before dawn, its exhaust puffing white into the dark sky. I was bouncing with excitement, practically vibrating in my oversized boots and hand-me-down jacket that smelled of mothballs and gun oil.
“‘Settle down, boy,’ Grandpa chuckled, his gravelly voice almost drowned out by the rumble of the truck. ‘The deer will hear your heartbeat all the way from the woods.’
“Hunting his land felt like stepping into a dream,” Joshua-Paul added.
The two trudged through the snow to a ground blind they’d built earlier that fall.
“My legs were short, my backpack too heavy, and my nerves were on fire,” he recalls. “Grandpa moved like the woods belonged to him — quiet, deliberate and steady. I, on the other hand, sounded like a dump truck in snowshoes. He glanced back, grinning and shaking his head. I knew exactly what he was thinking.”
Joshua-Paul couldn’t sit still inside the blind. To him, every squirrel sounded like a monster buck. Every gust of wind made him grip the shotgun tighter. Meanwhile, Grandpa sipped his coffee, completely calm.
“Hunting,” he told his jittery grandson, “ain’t about what shows up. It’s about how long you can sit before your butt goes numb.”
Hours later, just when the numb-toed kid’s eyelids grew heavy, his grandfather announced it was time to stretch their legs. While afoot, they spotted a giant buck at the edge of a clearing.
“My heart nearly burst, but Grandpa just whispered: ‘Steady,’” he said.
The deer bolted immediately, and both hunters fired their shotguns, hitting only air.
Convinced he’d disappointed his grandfather, Joshua-Paul felt gut-punched. But the old man put his arm around the boy.
“Well, son, we sure showed him where not to stand again,” he gave an infectious laugh.
Later that winter, his grandfather found the buck’s shed antlers.
“To me, they were treasure, proof that even in misses, moments were made,” Joshua-Paul said.
“That farm, which we called The Hill, wasn’t just acres and timber. It was our classroom, our church, our playground and our sanctuary.”
His grandfather died in February 2024.
“Hunting didn’t matter that year. I didn’t put out cameras. I didn’t check a stand. I didn’t want to walk The Hill,” Joshua-Paul said. “I’d reach for my phone to call him and remember he wasn’t there anymore. The silence afterward was deafening.”
That summer, a buddy shared a trail camera image of a buck they’d been watching for a couple of seasons. They’d nicknamed it Outlaw.
“The way that deer moved — slow, deliberate, like he knew he was the king of the hill — made you stop breathing,” Joshua-Paul said. “Sometimes, he’d appear on the camera for just a second, staring back at you as if to say, ‘You’ll have to earn this.’”
Nevertheless, Joshua-Paul didn’t get the itch to hunt Outlaw until September. When he committed, he decided to hunt only from his Grandpa’s stands.
He set out a few cameras, which began collecting numerous images of the buck almost immediately.
When Ohio’s Dec. 2-8 firearms season arrived, Joshua-Paul went to the wooden box blind he and his grandfather built in 2003, two years after the old man bought the land.
“The boards creaked. The smell of dust, old wood and coffee hit me instantly,” he said. “Memories of 20 years — all the laughs, lessons and missed shots — washed over me.”
Otherwise, the first week was a bust.
During the bonus weekend two weeks later, Joshua-Paul took his daughter Riley with him for an evening sit. Her little backpack was stuffed with snacks and doodles.
“She bounced with the same energy I’d once had,” her father mused.
“This seat’s squeaky,” she observed.
“They all are,” he answered. “Sit still, and the deer won’t mind.”
“She gave me that daughter look — part eye-roll, part grin — and settled in for hours. Does trickled in, and Riley counted them under her breath: One, two, three … boring.
“I laughed. ‘Patience kills more deer than bullets, remember?’ I reminded her.”
“Then I’m a deer-killing machine!” she whispered.
“I nearly spit out my coffee,” he said.
Moments later, Outlaw stepped into the open at 35 yards, and Riley’s eyes went wide.
“I thought of Grandpa, of our first hunt, of the sheds, of all the phone calls. Of carrying his ashes. And I squeezed the rifle’s trigger,” he said. “I turned to Riley and said, ‘We did it. We got him.’”
Joshua-Paul called Jennifer, who brought their youngest daughter. The whole family — Grandpa included, as Joshua-Paul had his ashes in his pocket — was there for the recovery of the 23-pointer.
The Tullys bought the farm the following April.
“Outlaw wasn’t just a deer,” he said. “He was a bridge between generations, between life and memory, and between grief and joy.
“Some hunting stories are about antlers. This one isn’t. This one’s about family, legacy, laughter and the moments that leave you breathless, grateful and sometimes shaking from laughter or tears.”
Joshua-Paul took the antlers to Toby and Lori Hughes to be measured for Buckmasters. The husband-and-wife team came up with 201 6/8 inches. The rack’s 11 abnormal points were enough to put it in the irregular category.
.png)