If you live in Pennsylvania, or if you follow NFL football, you may have heard of Chris Boswell, the extraordinary place kicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. When Quaker state bowhunter Nick Stone and his children saw a buck with heavy drop tines and kickers on their trail cameras, it was only natural to nickname the buck, “The Wizard of Bos.”
The deer, caught on eight cameras all over Nick’s 79-acre Armstrong County land, kept him in the woods every spare minute.
“I bought the property right at the start of bow season,” he says. “It’s heavily wooded with white oaks, and deer just love those meaty acorns.”
Some area hunters with neighboring land told Nick he would be wasting his time hunting that property because there were no shooter bucks around. They said he might, maybe, see a doe, so he shouldn’t waste his time.
Nick laughs, “Unh-huh. Right. In no time, I saw two very impressive bucks.”
Asked how he would describe his hunting style, Nick, 38, says, “I’m very dedicated. I’m in the woods every day, hunting by food sources during the early season — acorns and apples. Right now, my property is new to me and I’m still learning.”
Six days after the purchase, Nick went back and checked the cameras and saw a very pretty 16 pointer that became his “target buck.” To his delight, he saw a 10-point buck of similar body size.
“Those were two of the biggest I’ve seen around here. The average Pennsylvania deer is 100 inches. In the past, a hunter seeing what we see now would consider them world class deer. Our state is starting to hit the map.”
Nick’s father-in-law, Scott, and he vowed that one of them would shoot the 16-pointer now that they knew it was in the area.
He says, “Together, we cut a shooting lane by clearing the overhanging limbs from our 20-foot ladder stand to the gas well road. We knew the deer like to walk up and down the trail through the woods used by natural gas well tenders who access the gas wells by a vehicle.”
By Oct. 12, the Wizard of Bos was hitting every single trail camera, day and night. But Nick couldn’t find the buck, in person. Then, on Oct. 26, he had a feeling he should hunt out of the ladder stand instead of offering it to his father-in-law or his old school friend, Adam. “I had a hunch it might be a lucky location because I hadn’t hunted it before in the morning.”
Nick went out before daybreak. He says, “I sat in the dark for an hour and watched a gorgeous sunrise. To be in the woods in the morning is beautiful.”
At first, a 4-point came in behind him while his bow was hanging up and his grunt call was still in his bag. Then he heard a crunch behind him, to his left.
“Turning, I saw an enormous body with huge antlers about 75 yards distant. I couldn’t tell which buck it was. He took steps onto an old dirt roads with gas wells, grown in by brush and trees. He turned and walked over the ridge away from me and disappeared.”
Nick knew it was trophy-big, but he didn’t want to move because of the 4-point below him.
“I thought, if I didn’t do something, I might never see him again. So, I grabbed my grunt tube and laid out two long deep grunts. When I did that, the little buck ran 40 yards in front of me. Ten seconds later, the big buck reappeared at the top of ridge on a gas well road. The big buck slowly walked along the trail toward the sound of the grunts.”
The stroll took 45 seconds to cover the distance from the ridge to the shooting lane Nick and Scott had cleared. Once it hit the clearing, Nick was at full draw.
“I mouth-grunted when he arrived, and he stopped. Because of the way his head was turned, I never saw the kicker (drop tine) on his right side, so I didn’t know it was Bos. I’m color blind so the drop tine blended in with his body. I just thought it was a big 10-pointer.”
The buck was 30 yards away, standing broadside. Its stance was perfect for a double lung shot. It ran downhill, then into the woods to the west.
Nick says, “I was confident that I heard him crash. I called my wife, said get the kids ready, then called Scott to help move the deer. In a while, everyone and drove up the gas well road to the orange hat I left to mark the arrow. Since I don’t see the color red, I needed someone to help follow the blood trail.”
Nick was the first to see the grounded deer. He called out, “Oh my gosh, it’s Wizard of Bos. Everyone started yelling and screaming. It was crazy.”
He sighs, “Really, it doesn’t get any better than that.”