Ohio has been churning out giant whitetails all season long, and Buckeye State hunters aren't done yet. The latest monster to hit the ground was taken by 14-year-old Hunter Windsor on December 2. Windsor killed the deer around midday with a 450 Bushmaster rifle while still hunting on public ground with his father John Windsor. Earlier this week, Toby Hughes of Caledonia, Ohio scored its 26-point rack at well over 240 inches using the Buckmasters scoring system.
"We were standing by a tree when I looked over and saw his horns," Hunter tells Field & Stream. "He was about 75 yards away when I first saw him and 35 yards from me when I took the shot."
Hunter's dad was standing next to him when he shot the deer. He says his son has been chasing whitetails with him for four seasons now. "We hunted in a blind until about 10 a.m. that morning then got out and started stalking around," John tells F&S. "That's the normal strategy for us."
Hunter and John only had one other encounter with the deer. That was during bow season, and the buck was well out of range on a distant ridge. John says his brother-in-law captured a trail-cam photo of it during the early phase of the rut, but they weren't targeting or even expecting to see it on the day Hunter shot it. "This deer was a legend around here, but I didn't know that," John says. "Apparently there were a lot of people after him."
On December 2, with a cold front moving through their area, John and Hunter stalked quietly through the hardwoods with the wind in their faces. About two hours into the still hunt, they paused for food and water. They'd just started moving again when Hunter caught a glimpse of the buck's antlers moving through the trees. "He was just perfectly still and put a great shot on the deer," John says. "I was really proud of the way he handled it."
Hunter, who now has two bucks to his name, was resting his rifle on a shooting stick when he took the shot. "He was facing me, and the only shot I had was straight-on at his chest so I took it," he says. "He ran about 75 yards then disappeared."
"He confident about the shot," John says. "I took a picture of him sitting on a log afterwards, and you could have cut the tension with a knife. You could see the tension in the picture."
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They waited two hours before blood trailing the buck, John says, and found it piled up less than 100 yards from the spot where Hunter shot it. A few days later, they drove the deer's rack three hours north to Caledonia where Toby Hughes gave it an official BTR score of 244 4/8 inches. Hughes says it's the second-biggest buck he's scored all year behind Logan Urban's 260-inch giant killed in early October.
