“I am simply blessed to have been the hunter who obtained him”
Matthew Puckett with the 13-point buck he tagged in early January. {Photograph} courtesy of Matthew Puckett
On Jan. 7, Matthew Puckett and his dad Ed climbed into two completely different tree stands on their 80-acre searching lease in Adams County, Ohio. The stands have been solely 150 yards away from one another, and each males have been searching for a cagey, 13-point buck that had gotten away from Matthew twice final deer season. After lacking the buck together with his bow, he blew a second alternative throughout gun season.
“I didn’t have the rifle absolutely cocked, and it wouldn’t hearth after I had an opportunity at him,” Matthew tells Out of doors Life.
Going into this season, the firefighter from Peebles, Ohio, was decided to get one other shot on the buck that he’d been watching on his path cameras. The one downside? Each different hunter within the space appeared to be after the deer, too.
“He was roaming as much as two miles, which we knew from some neighbors who have been additionally focusing on the buck,” says Matthew, who spent many of the early season making an attempt to sample the deer.
This had gotten tougher to do by the point Ohio’s muzzleloader season rolled round in early January. Simply days earlier than Matthew and his dad cut up as much as hunt the property, Matthew discovered that one in every of his neighbors, a bowhunter, had lately shot on the buck and missed. The broadhead nicked the buck’s entrance leg, which gave it a limp and made it even cagier.
The limp additionally made the deer simpler to acknowledge. And when it steeped into Matthew’s field-of-view late within the afternoon on Jan. 7, he had zero doubt about what he was .
“About 4:45 that afternoon a few does confirmed close by, and I began trying laborious for a buck,” Matthew says. “I noticed a limping deer manner off, and I appeared him over with my binoculars and realized it was [him].”
The buck stored strolling his route because it adopted the does by means of the timber. When it stepped between two timber at round 100 yards, Matthew fired his muzzleloader. The buck ran solely 50 yards earlier than it fell.
“I instantly yelled, ‘Thank the Lord!’” Matthew says. He yelled so loud that his dad heard him from inside the opposite tree stand, and by the point Matthew walked as much as the buck, Ed was already strolling there. The 2 loaded it up on their ATV and headed dwelling. By the point they obtained there, the information that the buck had fallen was already going across the space.
“My neighbor who was additionally searching the buck despatched me a textual content as a result of he heard me shoot,” Matthew says. “He figured the buck was gone, so he advised me he shot a doe that afternoon.”
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The 13-point buck acquired a Buckmasters rating of 175 inches. Matthew says it had worn-down enamel and appeared beat up from the rut.
“We figured he was a minimum of 5 or 6 years outdated, as a result of loads of neighbors within the surrounding space had gotten pictures of him throughout that point,” he says. “I’m simply blessed to have been the hunter who obtained him.”
