Few if any states have churned out more trophy-class whitetails this year than Ohio. F&S has been writing about them since early October, and we just featured a 244-incher taken by a 14-year-old hunter on public land in the southern part of the Buckeye State. With the state's muzzleloader season running to January 7, there might be more world-class Ohio bucks still to come in Ohio. But we figured it was time to compile the season's biggest into one tell-all list. Here are 8 of the most impressive Ohio bucks tagged in 2024.
1. Logan Urban's 260-Inch Giant
Logan Urban was hunting on the ground with a crossbow on October 5 when the biggest buck he's ever seen stepped into a bean field about 200 yards away. Urban had been patterning and observing the enormous whitetail since July, he told Field & Stream, so when it closed the gap to just 30 yards and began quartering towards him, the 18-year-old hunter was ready and made a perfect shot. Logan took the buck's antlers to longtime Buckmasters scorer Toby Hughes in Caledonia, Ohio, who said he was dumbfounded by the deer's mass, main beam length, and the size of its palmated brow tines. He scored it at an astonishing 260 7/8 inches BTR. You can read the full story of Urban's buck here.
2. Hunter Windsor's Public Land Tank
14-year-old Hunter Windsor has been chasing whitetails with his dad since he was ten. Though he has a lifetime of hunting ahead of him, the 26-point Ohio buck he killed in early December will be a tough if not impossible benchmark to beat. Windsor and his dad John were still hunting public land, near the border of their private property, when Hunter spotted the deer moving through the hardwoods. "We were standing by a tree when I looked over and saw his horns," he told Field & Stream. "He was about 75 yards away when I first saw him and 35 yards from me when I took the shot." The massive deer disappeared from sight after Hunter shot it, and piled up on the other side of ridge line less than 100 yards away. Read the full story here.
3. Mark Dunn's October Trophy
It’s not often that a trophy whitetail shows up in daylight hours in October, much less eight times in the first three weeks of the season. But that’s exactly what happened to Mark Dunn of Mechanicsburg, who shot a 233-inch Ohio buck on October 20 on a hunting lease near his home. “He drove me crazy for three weeks,” Dunn tells Field & Stream. “I've never heard of a buck that size daylighting so many times that early in the season.” We interviewed Dunn to get the full story of his once-in-a-lifetime hunt. Read it here.
4. Brandon Sheets' Heavy-Horned 20-Pointer
Brandon Sheets hunted the 20-point monster pictured below for three years, he told F&S, before finally putting an arrow in it on November 9 as it crashed through the timber trailing a doe. The deer, which Sheets' young daughter named "Big John," claimed a BTR score of 260 7/8 inches. Check out the back story on Sheets' multi-year campaign to kill the massive Ohio buck here.
5. Daniel Cermeans' Third-Chance Giant
35-year-old builder Daniel Cermeans began hunting this enormous Ohio buck back in 2022. “He was a 130-class 10-point with a split G2 that fall,” he said. “He kind of stood out because he looked to be a 3-year old buck we had no history with; he just showed up around the rut and stayed. He had several other encounters (both he and his buddy missed a shot at it) before shooting it earlier this season. See the full story and the Buckmasters measurements here.
6. Tommy Allen's Ghost Buck
Bowhunter Tommy Allen watched this trophy-class Ohio buck develop for three seasons. “I felt he was a 3-½ year old that season,” he told F&S Whitetail Editor Scott Bestul. “He had 12 points and was probably a 135-inch buck. But I felt like he was one of those deer that would really blow up if he could make it another year or two. I was actually chasing another deer pretty hard, so it wasn’t too difficult to pass him up that fall.” When he finally arrowed the buck, he found it had a 17-inch inside spread and a gross BTR score of 216-4/8 inches. Read about his hunt here.
Read Next: How to Hunt Post-Rut Bucks
7. Will Grodhaus' 200-Inch 10 Point
Back in October, bow hunter Will Grodhaus proved that you don't need access to vast acreage to kill a true trophy-class buck, especially not in Ohio. He spotted the giant 10-point buck in the photo below feeding in a bean field last summer then secured permission on a 20-acre piece of private land nearby. He arrowed the buck on October 3, and it grossed 200-4/8 inches on the Buckmasters scoring system, earning a spot in F&S's Biggest Whitetail Bucks of 2024.
8. Tommy Gliatta's Hard-Earned Booner
Tommy Gliatta endured a 20-foot fall from a tree stand that sent him to the ER during his first hunt for this beautiful Ohio buck. “I got discharged early one afternoon, got a ride home, gathered all my gear, and headed straight for the woods," he told F&S. "I ended up sitting on the ground in a makeshift blind in a log pile. Shortly before dark, I scanned the woods and there he was, just inside the wood line. He stopped with his head behind a tree at 50 yards, so I settled in with my 50 yard crosshair—I was hunting with a crossbow due to my banged up shoulder—and let it fly.” The buck green-scored 165 B&C with 11 scorable points.
