"My 18-point Buck" by Gary Smith Sr.

With our hunting trip already scheduled, my good friend Ray and I visited the property, in Medina County, Ohio, a week earlier to scout the premises.  Like many hunters, we set up a game camera to hopefully get an indication of what was lurking in the woods.  We knew there was a long week of anticipation ahead, but we left with a good feeling that next weekend would be filled with excitement.

Gary Smith Sr. with his 18-point buck

A week later, on October 30^th, we returned to the property for what we hoped would be a successful weekend.  The excitement that I took with me the first morning was soon lost, as I didn’t see anything for quite some time.  As lunch-time approached, we retreated from our stands and checked the camera.  The camera revealed eight events, each of them included the same 4-point buck and a few does roaming at night.  We were disappointed in the findings, but they would not deter us from having a successful weekend.  We returned to the woods that evening bound and determined to find us a trophy buck.            

After returning to my stand, I sat patiently for a few hours before two does came out of the thicket behind me.  Shortly after, I could hear what sounded like a much larger deer rustling and thrashing around in a thicket.   It was difficult to make out its rack, though, because it blended in with the thick brush surrounding him.  Then, all of a sudden, he ran off.

No more than 20 minutes passed before I again saw movement in the same thicket.  Once again, though, I couldn’t make out the size of the buck, but I knew by the sounds that it was a good size.  The next thing I knew a large bodied deer with antlers is running straight at me! When he reached 15 yards of my stand I pulled back the string of my Hoyt Ultratec and tried my best to place the pin behind his shoulder.  After taking the shot, I waited about 30 minutes to get out of my stand.  By this time it was getting dark, so we decided to leave him and come back in the morning.



Scored a 158''



The next morning, my buddy Ray, my son Gary Jr., my wife Cheryl and I went back to look.  After struggling to find a blood trail for quite some time, I decided to go off on my own and search for the buck.  As it turns out, the arrow had passed through the buck and the intestines had plugged a hole, preventing us from seeing any type of blood trail.  When I finally found the buck, roughly 50-yards from my stand, I could not believe it!  An 18-point buck that my son, Gary Jr, scored at 158''!

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