Ohio 8 Point - Ohio
Kim and her Ohio 8 point.
Hunter: Kim Edwards
Cameraman: Terry Edwards
Back in September, Joe asked Terry and I if we would be interested in making an appearance at the Wheeling, West Virginia Cabela’s store to represent, Archer's Choice, we gladly took him up on it and were very excited. We had a great time at Cabela’s, met tons of great people and Archers Choice fans. During the planning of this trip, we decided after the weekend at Cabela’s, we would venture to Ohio to hunt with a friend, who had invited us to hunt on his farm for the first time. So on Sunday evening after leaving Cabela’s, we drove to Ohio, checked into our motel, unpacked our gear, and prepared for our hunt the next day.
Monday Nov. 10
We drove over to the farm and met with John and his family. John showed us around the farm and showed us some good places to set up. After doing a little scouting mid-day, we set up our Ameristep blind for an evening hunt which was pretty slow with a sighting of only a doe.
Tuesday Nov. 11
We hunted from the ground blind again and only saw a couple of does, which really surprised us because the area was torn up with buck sign.
Wednesday Nov. 12
This morning, we tried the ground blind again, but only saw a couple of does. During mid-day we decided to hang a set on a soybean field which was partially harvested. While hanging the stands we saw a good buck with a doe, so we had high hopes for the evening.
About 3:00 p.m., we climbed in our Ameristep stands for the evening. The first hour was pretty slow until about 5:30 p.m. when we saw some does filtering into the beans. A little later we saw a nice 8-point following a doe into the field. We tried everything to pull the buck our way, but he just wouldn’t leave the doe.
Dark was approaching fast and we had almost given up hope, when we heard a deer walking in the thicket behind us. I turned to see a nice Ohio 8-point coming our way. My heart began to race when I saw he was going to pass within 10 yards of our tree. He passed our stand and I prepared myself and our Ten Point crossbow for the shot—just then the buck spotted the Delta Decoy that Terry had set out about 20 yards into the field. The buck suddenly laid his ears back, bristled up, and started posturing as he walked slowly toward the decoy, I was so caught up in watching the way he reacted to our decoy, I almost forgot to shoot. I suddenly snapped out of my daze when I heard Terry say “Anytime.” I quickly settled the cross hairs behind the bucks shoulder as he was now only 3 feet from the decoy, giving me a great quartering away angle. I squeezed the trigger and saw the Easton Tracer nock on my arrow fly through the air and strike the buck behind the shoulder. He took off through the beans and expired in the field only about 50 yards away.
I couldn’t believe what just happened. After a high five with Terry and a short celebration, we climbed down to go retrieve my buck. There was no tracking involved as we had seen him go down from the stand. We walked directly over to my buck. After a short photo session, because the batteries went dead in my camera, we loaded him up to take him back and show him to John. At the house, John and his wife Dessie came out and congratulated me on a fine buck. They were almost as excited as we were. This was a great conclusion to a great trip. We got to meet a lot of good people at Cabela’s and experience some of Ohio’s deer hunting at its finest.