Codey Redd was staked out on the ground last December when he encountered a giant 18-point buck he'd been chasing for the better part of four deer seasons. Though he'd captured trail cam photos over the years and collected multiple sets of the buck's sheds, Redd hadn't encountered the freakishly-wide Ohio whitetail while hunting him until that day. When the climactic moment finally arrived—around 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 21—he steadied his 350 legend on a fencepost and shot the deer behind the shoulder. Then he had to belly crawl more than 50 yards to get more bullets for a follow-up shot, the hunter tells Field & Stream. Here's the full story of his once-in-a-lifetime buck.
"The property where I killed this deer is owned by a close friend of mine. It's a little 80-acre hay field with some tillable ground, a cattle pasture, and some woods, " Redd says. "He found a set of the buck's sheds in 2021 and brought them to me at work. I told him it was the biggest set of antlers I'd ever seen in my life, and he said: 'You can start hunting him if you want.'"
Sheds in hand and permission granted, Redd became obsessed with the big deer. "I was pretty new to hunting back then. The more research I did, the more I realized that when you're hunting an old mature buck like this, intrusion into his core area is the number one thing to avoid," he says, "so I put out some cell cams and left the area alone for awhile. When I got his picture, I was blown away by the width and overall size of his rack."
Redd says he hunted the deer hard that first year but never had any in-person encounters. When the season ended, he started scouting almost immediately. "I found his sheds the following season (2022) then hunted through bow and gun season," he says. "I got married that winter, and my wife and I decided to take our honeymoon to Florida while it was cold and snowing back home. I was sitting pool-side when I started getting trail cam pics of him in front of my stand at like 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. He did that all week long. It made me sick. I didn't encounter him again in person until the summer of 2023."
That summer, the landowner spotted the buck in full velvet bedded in the middle of the hayfield, and Redd encountered him in person a few weeks later. "There's a big cedar thicket on the property that he liked to bed in, and I was walking through putting up cameras when I jumped him out of his bed," he says. "It was astonishing just to see him on the hoof for the first time. I hunted all season, starting in September, but never had any in-person encounters after that. All the photos I got of him that year were at night."
The following spring, Redd searched like crazy for the buck's sheds, he says, even enlisting help from a few buddies. "We never could find them," he says. "Then few weeks later the landowner was out plowing when he caught the buck's right side in the basket of his tillage tool." Redd recalls. "Based on that, I knew he was still alive, and his rack was bigger than ever."
By the time the 2024-25 season rolled around, other hunters were becoming aware of the deer. "I wasn't the only person in the area hunting this deer," he says. "A landowner on an adjacent piece of property got a picture of him that floated around the area heavily. After that, dour or five guys came by to ask my buddy for permission to hunt his farm, but he turned them all down."
As word of the buck spread, Redd continued to hunt hard. "I hunted every day during the first week of gun season but never saw a deer," he says. "Then on Dec. 1 at about 3:30 a.m., I got a picture of him in the cedar thicket." Redd was ecstatic to see the buck alive, especially after hearing rumors that he'd been poached. "He was looking directly into my camera in those photos," he says. "I could tell that one of his brow tines and that giant drop tine on his right side were both broken off."
By then, Ohio's regular gun season had ended so Redd started still hunting the buck with his bow. "I had zero encounters during those bow hunts," he says. "But I knew there was a two-day gun season coming up, and I was holding out hope for that." At 4:40 p.m. on Dec. 21, Redd set up in a secluded spot on the ground overlooking two ridgetops. "One of the ridgetops comes out of that back of the cedar thicket, and I thought there was a good chance he'd be bedded in there until evening, " he says. "I'd been sitting for about 10 minutes when I heard a grunt in the hay field beside the thicket."
He crawled in closer to get eyes on the hayfield, he says. "I threw my binos up, and it was like a dream. He was standing there on a low-rolling hill silhouetted against the sunset," he says. "I dropped my pack and crawled up to the fence row as he was grazing towards the middle of the field, getting further and further away. I found a fence post, propped my gun up, and put the crosshairs on him, but I couldn't take the shot because I was shaking so bad."
Redd took a deep breath to calm his nerves then settled the crosshairs behind the shoulder again. The deer was standing broadside about 160 yards away. "I gently squeezed the trigger and the bullet hit with a thud somewhere near the shoulder," he says. "He dropped but then got back up and started looking around. I shot two more times, but he never went down."
With a creek bed nearby that serves as an escape route, Redd was worried that the big buck might walk, so he army-crawled back to his backpack to get more ammo. "When I got back to the fence, he was still standing there. I shot again and missed then shot one more time and made a perfect hit behind the shoulder. He started wobbling then walked out of sight."
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Redd waited an hour-and-a-half to start tracking the deer and finally found it in the dark with help from the landowner and another good friend who'd driven in to help track. "When I finally saw his rack in the beam of my buddy's flashlight, I hit my knees and started bawling," he says. "I couldn't believe my four-year journey had come to an end. It was a lot to take in."
According to Buckmasters, Redd's deer scored 231 5/8 BTR, making it the biggest "semi-irregular" centerfire rifle-killed whitetail the record-keeping organization has ever scored in Ohio. Redd says the 7.5-year-old deer had 30-plus-inch main beams and a 25 and 5/8-inch inside spread.
