Evan Dutrow of Terre Haute “got serious” about bowhunting in 2022, the year he got his first “big-kid job” and bought a bow. He’d taken three 180-plus-inch Indiana bucks with firearms to that point.
That same year, the now-26-year-old construction company estimator got trail camera photographs of two nice bucks. He shot the largest, a 192-incher, with his rifle, and the neighbor got the other one, a 180-plus 12-pointer.
“Even though that was my biggest deer, I felt bad because I hadn’t shot it with my bow,” he said. “That changed my mindset. From then on, I was bow-only.”
On Halloween night the following year (2023), a familiar buck stepped in front of one of his cameras on the Parke County tract. Evan realized he’d given it a pass in 2022, when it was a 160-inch 10-pointer with a large kicker. Its new rack — now a 6x7 — had easily packed on another 20 inches.
“I wound up betraying myself,” Evan sighed. “I shot it with a rifle.”
The celebration afterward was premature, however. While Evan was basking in his success from afar, the buck regained its feet and jumped a nearby fence.
“I searched all the next day, but there was no blood to follow because the rain had washed it away,” he said. “I was deflated.”
Later trail camera images revealed the deer was alive. The bullet hole at the top of its back was clearly visible.
“I’d hit it in that no-man’s land,” Evan said.
He didn’t see the animal again until the following September (2024). The buck, sporting an even larger set of still mostly typical antlers, was hitting a mock scrape during a storm.
He actually saw it working a scrape for 15 minutes a couple of weeks later, after which it disappeared. In November of that year, it came through every other day.
One rainy/sleety day in late December, when Evan fought the urge to stay indoors, he encountered the buck at only 25 yards. It’s body was completely shielded by a tree, however, and it managed to keep the tree between them while walking off into the sunset.
“It was tough,” Evan said. “I kept thinking, He’d defeating me at every turn. I was also worried the neighbors, who knew about and were hunting the deer, would probably get it.”
The following summer, Evan kept close tabs on the area’s agricultural fields. On Aug. 2, he spotted the buck and three or four other nice ones in a bean field.
“I was blown away,” he said. “I saw right away it was him. That time, he had two drops and even more trash.”
A month later, the buck hit a mock scrape on Evan’s property.
In mid-October, Evan forgot to take his binoculars on a hunt. He saw a good buck shadowed by a much larger one. He thought the second one might be the deer he was after, and a nearby trail camera later confirmed it.
Between Oct. 20 and 30, Evan saw the buck six or seven times. He even drew his bow twice, prepared to take shots an average bowhunter might never attempt because he’d practiced such scenarios. Even so, he chose not to.
Knowing deer activity might spike with the full moon, Evan took three days off work, beginning Nov. 5. He lugged a climbing stand to a spot between where he suspected the deer was bedding and some oaks, a gnarly place that had been logged about five years earlier.
The sunlight-infused section had become overgrown, and the trek was anything but silent.
“I was making so much noise. The climber was clanking on everything,” he said. “I was sure it was going to be a waste of time.”
Between 10:30 and 11:00, he came down the tree, exchanged batteries in a camera, made a new mock scrape, and then went home for lunch.
“I almost talked myself out of going back, but I did,” he admitted. “I was in my stand by 3:30ish.”
An hour later, a small buck visited the scrape he’d made. After it had gone, a doe wandered in and began sniffing.
“I think she was searching for the deer she (thought she) smelled. I had also put out some estrous doe scent,” he added.
The doe stayed close, even venturing directly beneath him at times.
At 5:40, Evan heard grunting behind his right shoulder. Before he’d seen the source, he instinctively reached for his bow. Eventually, he glimpsed the left side of the approaching buck’s rack and he knew which one it was.
The buck was looping around to come in downwind of the scrape. When it was 25 yards away, it was facing Evan and saw him draw his bow. Before Evan could acquire it in his sights, the buck trotted almost 15 yards.
Evan, who had let off the draw, couldn’t see the deer at first. When he did, he drew again and settled his 40-yard pin on the motionless whitetail.
“It was only 30 yards, so I hit it a little high and back,” he said. “I heard the arrow hit, and the crash not long afterward. Then I heard scrambling and another crash. The third and final crash was closer. It actually circled back toward me.”
Evan first called his father, his go-to dragging partner, and then his fiancee. A half-hour later, after his legs had mostly stopped shaking, he got down and found his blood-soaked arrow.
He had to get down on his hands and knees to get through the red-walled tunnel through the brambles. When he was able to stand and scan ahead with his flashlight, the beam bounced off the deer’s white belly.
“As bad as I wanted it to end, I was stunned that this three-year battle of wits was all over,” he said. “I’d finally got my first bow buck, though!”
Steven Taylor measured the long-beamed 19-pointer for Buckmasters, arriving at 230 3/8 inches. The nearly 22 inches of abnormal points put it in the irregular category.