Jared Wurth easily swiss-cheesed his target while breaking-in his new crossbow this fall, but only a couple of his two dozen shots were beyond 25 yards.
The 19-year-old’s father, Ed, had warned against taking pokes at deer beyond 30 yards, since even a blistering arrow speed offers no guarantees beyond that range. The bolt might hit a spooked whitetail, but not necessarily where it was intended.
Jared had no intention of testing the theory, nor does he desire to wound and not recover an animal. The two 30-yard practice shots were more to understand the unfamiliar weapon’s capabilities.
“I knew I probably wouldn’t take a shot that far,” he said of the practice shots.
This wasn’t the teenager’s first crossbow. At age 8, he’d used one to harvest a doe, which was actually a button buck. It sat idle for a decade afterward.
Jared, an only child, decided to get back into hunting in 2024. He and his dad had retrieved a trail camera photo of a 160-class 12-pointer, a giant for that area in northwestern Ohio.
A week before he upgraded, he gave his old crossbow to a friend who had expressed an interest in hunting.
Jared had one buck — the 12-pointer their trail camera had photographed the previous season — on his mind when he went afield Friday evening, Oct. 25. Someone had found the deer’s sheds in the spring, so he and his dad assumed it had survived.
The Wurths had seen a photo of another and much larger buck, but they had no reason to believe it would be anywhere near the 40-acre tract they hunt, or even if it existed at all.
One of Ed’s friends came across and shared the trail camera photo purportedly taken 2 miles from their place. (They later learned it had also been photographed 8 miles north of their property.)
“We thought, No way is there a buck like that in our area,” Jared laughed.
His father agreed.
“I never gave a thought that deer would be where we hunt,” Ed said. “We have cameras, and it had never been photographed.
“A 150 around here is a big deal,” he continued. “We’re just not a big buck area. It must’ve been run out of another property.”
Rather than go to his customary blind, Jared spent the afternoon in his dad’s 20-foot-high treestand. He’d never sat in it before that day, but the wind wasn’t right for his usual spot. Plus, his father walked him out to it, watched him navigate the climbing sticks, and made sure he was comfortable with the setup before leaving.
About 6:00, Jared saw a cat in a clearing and took a short video of it with his phone. He sent the file to a friend, announcing “the next world record.”
The next thing he saw was much bigger.
“Thirty minutes later, this buck poked its head out of a thicket,” Jared said. “I thought it was the 12-pointer. I had no idea it was the rumored buck, even when it stepped clear of the brush.
“I was a little unnerved,” he continued. “I was planning to shoot my crossbow off my knee, but I couldn’t get a comfortable rest that way.”
When the buck finally emerged from the thicket, it began rubbing a tree only 33 yards from Jared’s pine.
“It was broadside to me the whole time, so I could see only one side of its rack,” he said. “I still thought it was the 12-pointer.
“The only way I could shoot was to stand and freehand it,” Jared continued. “I was nervous, at first, but the nerves went away for a brief moment, long enough for me to shoot. Afterward, they came back.”
After the bolt left his bow, Jared heard a loud smack. He didn’t see the impact, but he was 99% sure he’d drilled the animal. He also heard a crash in the woods moments later, after which he called his father and a buddy, Grady Steffan.
His father said Jared’s first words on the phone were rushed and garbled.
The three waited an hour and a half before taking up the trail.
“It was so thick, we had to crawl through the brush in spots. When we finally hit open woods, we decided to go home and wait at least another hour,” he said.
The teenagers were in front, following blood, while Ed remained behind them, shining his flashlight ahead. He actually saw the deer’s white belly before his son and Grady connected the final red dots.
Until they actually stood over the fallen whitetail, they still thought it was the 12-pointer from their 2024 pictures. Only later did they realized they did possess one image of the big buck before it had broken off a drop tine dangling from its right antler.)
“It just kept getting bigger and bigger, the closer we got,” Jared said. “When we reached it, it was like HOLY COW! I didn’t pay attention to its rack when it was rubbing that tree.
“It’s been pretty interesting and fun,” the recent high school graduate continued. “It’s generated a lot of comments on social media, mostly positive. The few complaints, so far, have come from those who aren’t fans of crossbows.”
Toby Hughes measured the 23-pointer for Buckmasters, arriving at 241 5/8 inches. It’s a mainframe 6x6 with 31-plus-inch beams, five uprights registering at least 10 inches, and nearly 40 inches of mass. Although the 27 3/8 inches of abnormal growth push it into the irregular category, its typical frame well exceeds the 200-inch mark.
The impressive buck ties the No. 11 spot among Ohio’s crossbow-felled Irregulars.
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