Buckeye’s Best

Ohio’s tourism slogan is “so much to discover.” I agree. I discovered some big bucks at the Ohio Deer and Turkey Expo in Columbus and discovered I need to set aside some time to hunt Ohio whitetails. The show’s largest non-typical was shot several years back, but it showed one thing clearly, big bucks don’t need towering tines to score big. The rack was shot by Raymond Poling, 17-years-old at the time, and sports a 15X12-point configuration netting 215 5/8 inches. The amazing thing is that no tine has a length over 10 inches with the longest reaching 9 5/8 inches. The greatest circumference is 4 5/8 inches. The most impressive characteristic, besides the amount of points, is its main beams, both in the 25-inch range. Poling’s buck just goes to show you don’t need monster measurements, just lots of points. It came from Wayne County and was shot with a crossbow.

The largest typical of the show was arrowed November 2, 2007 by Donald Wilson in Brown County. It nets an impressive 181 4/8 inches making it easily eligible for both Pope and Young, and Boone and Crockett. Wilson’s buck has a 7X7 frame that grosses more than 195 inches. Its G1s measure more than 8 inches and its G2s and G3s all are in the 12-inch category. It also carries its mass well with 5-inch bases and 4-inch-plus circumferences throughout the main beam.

The deer display area was chock full of great scoring bucks with many scoring above 150 inches. More and more big bucks are coming from Ohio and the Ohio Big Buck Club display said it all with three past giants coming from Ohio including Brad Jerman’s 201 1/8 monster typical from Warren County, Jonathan Schmucker’s 295 3/8 colossal non-typical from Adams County and Mike Rex’s 218 1/8-inch picket fence from Athens County.

The Ohio Buckeyes may be a college namesake, but my eye is squarely watching the bucks of Ohio.

—Mark Kayser