Vern Evans
The evening of Oct. 12 was the third time this season that Taylor Hahnert had hunted from the same tree stand on a private 30-acre parcel in Knox County, Ohio. Hahnert was after a huge buck he’d seen often on the farm. It was one he’d passed on multiple times over the years, and a pair of split brown tines made it easy to recognize.
“I had lots of trail camera photos of the buck, and this summer when I got pictures of him in velvet, I knew this was the year to take him,” Hahnert tells Outdoor Life.
Sitting 18 feet up in the canopy of a mature maple, Hahnert’s stand was situated on the edge of a standing bean field. He’d broadcast some turnip seeds there earlier in the summer to help draw deer to the spot, and he kept a close eye on the field as the evening wore on.
“About 6:15 p.m. I spotted the buck walking toward me, and I tried to range-find him,” says Hahnert, 30, who lives in Ostrander. “But my rangefinder died, so I had to estimate the yardage and make my shot.”
Hahnert estimated the range at 40 yards and let an arrow fly. He’d later learn that the buck was only 35 yards away, and he hit it a little high.
“But the arrow clipped its spine,” says Hahnert, who was using a compound bow with a 100-grain, 3-blade mechanical broadhead. “The buck only went 20 yards and dropped in the bean field.”
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After watching the buck fall, Hahnert called his wife Kaitlyn and friend Cody Gray, who drove out to the farm to help recover the giant buck. His wife also brought along their three-year-old son, Knox.
“It was great because I wanted him to help find the buck … and when Knox saw the deer he said, ‘Oh deer boo, boo.’” Hahnert says. “That moment with him, my wife and friend. I’ll have that forever.”
After loading up the buck that Hahnert nicknamed “Mega Split,” they took it to Toby Hughes, an official scorer with Ohio Buckmasters. The mainframe 12-pointer had heavy mass, and Hughes scored it at 177 inches. They estimated the buck’s age around 4.5 years old.
Hahnert says he’ll have a shoulder mount made of the buck. And looking back on the hunt, he thinks some divine power may have been involved.
“A good friend of mine owned the farm, and I hunted it for eight years without taking a buck from the place. He was in ill health earlier this year, and I told him I’d shoot a nice buck off the farm,” says Hahnert. “He passed away less than two weeks before I shot Mega Split, and I can’t help but believe my friend was smiling and had a hand in my success.”
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