Before his friends and cousins convinced Andy Crum to try shooting a bow, and then to try hitting a deer with an arrow, the then-49-year-old’s weekends were mostly free. Vacations were vacations. Sunday afternoons were for naps.
That’s no longer the case.
The 54-year-old banker from Batavia, Ohio, now lives for the chance to sling arrows at deer, whether foam or flesh and blood. In addition to shooting 3-D archery, he has five places to hunt across the state’s southwestern corner.
One of the five spots is in neighboring Hamilton County.
In 2023, a friend in Cincinnati sent him a trail camera image of an enormous buck that Andy began calling Big Daddy. The exchange led to an invitation to hunt.
As soon as he got the okay, Andy drove over and hung three trail cameras on the mostly urban property. He never collected a photo of Big Daddy, but the cameras did reveal an equally impressive buck he nicknamed Bullwinkle because of some wavy tines.
Bullwinkle became his No. 2 obsession. There wasn’t a No. 3.
Andy might have had only a couple of seasons and one buck under his belt at that point, but he’d passed up numerous antlered whitetails that would’ve never walked past more seasoned hunters. If a deer doesn’t give him that ”kingly” feeling, he’s content never to reach for his bow.
Big Daddy and Bullwinkle were definitely kingly.
About 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 23 that first year, Bullwinkle came within 40 yards of Andy’s saddle-type stand — close enough, perhaps, but the angle wasn’t good.
“I just won’t take a bad shot at a deer, so I let him walk,” he said. “I knew it was likely a one-and-done, that I’d never see the buck again. So I called my friend and told him I was getting down and going home. He persuaded me to stay until dark.”
While driving home that night, he hit a buck and totaled his beloved 2019 Toyota Tacoma.
“That’s why I’ll never forget the date,” he said. “I loved that truck.”
The following year, Bullwinkle exhibited the same behavior — hitting bait piles and minerals sporadically until the bow season opened, after which he’d disappear. Andy never saw the deer on the hoof.
Last summer, Andy decided to change up his routine. Instead of baiting early, he waited until three weeks prior to the season opener. He also arranged to take off work the whole first week, to pursue the buck for nine straight days.
The ’25 season opened Saturday, Sept. 27. Andy spent the first six hours of the day at another property and the last five hours in Bullwinkle’s woods.
Sweating in the nearly 90-degree heat, he saw only does.
The following day, after attending the First Baptist Church of Glen Este and enjoying a lunch of leftovers, he and his wife of 18 years, Nicole, were sitting on the couch.
“You need to get ready, doncha?” Nicole finally asked.
“I’m honestly feeling a little lazy,” he replied.
“You took a whole week off to do this, so get up and go hunting,” she admonished. “You can’t shoot that deer while sitting on the couch!”
It’s hard to argue with your own words.
“If she hadn’t said anything, I probably wouldn’t have gone,” he admitted.
Andy reached the property and was in his 22-feet-tall hang-on stand between 2:30 and 3:00. It was so hot that he repeatedly used his scent-blocking spray.
A quarter past 7:00, he heard the sound of antler scraping wood and looked over his shoulder to see Bullwinkle in some chest-high weeds only 20 yards behind him, raking saplings.
The deer took 20 minutes to amble maybe 40 yards, passing underneath him to enter a patch of honeysuckle, which gave Andy a nearly perfect broadside opportunity.
After the solid thwack, Andy called five people before going to examine his blood-soaked arrow. He and a couple of friends, Jeff Hazenfield and Chris Moermond, later recovered the deer with no difficulties.
“The experience that night and the next day was unbelievable,” he said. “I didn’t care if it was a 150-incher or a 200-incher. The thing I’ll remember most is the camaraderie.”
His friends eagerly measured the antlers and came up with 205 inches.
“I didn’t think it would surpass 190,” Andy said. “I thought it was maybe 185, at most.”
His buddies were almost dead-on, however. When Ed Waite taped the 13-pointer for Buckmasters, he arrived at an even 203. The mainframe 6x6 has six uprights measuring between 10 and more than 14 inches long. The only scorable irregular point is the 3 3/8-inch fork off the right P2.
Another friend, Rusty Mills, helped cape the buck, since it would be Andy’s first shoulder mount. The deer tipped the scales at almost 260 pounds.