Vern Evans
Collin Derrow of Defiance, Ohio, has been hunting since childhood, and he has a slew of respectable Buckeye State bucks to show for it. But like many avid deer hunters, Derrow dreamed of having a piece of hunting property to call his own. In 2022, that dream came true when Derrow went in with his father and brother to purchase an 85-acre farm in Williams County, Ohio. It was mostly damp river-bottom land that looked like it had the potential to be a whitetail heaven.
Derrow and his family spent the first season doing whitetail recon on the new property. They ran multiple trail cameras and were pleased with what they saw, particularly one of the first bucks they picked up on the trail cameras. It was a large but peculiar-looking buck. From the front, he appeared to have double drop tines, but from the side, it looked like the end of his main beams bent downward, creating an odd, droopy look.
“The first night we put the cameras up, he came through the weeds into the picture, and he just looked awesome,” Derrow tells Outdoor Life. “I realized he was a super cool deer. He had those two curls. They weren’t super long yet, but you could tell they were going to grow down a few more inches.”
The rack was so unique that Derrow’s neighbors nicknamed the big buck Ed — or E.D., which they said was short for “erectile dysfunction.”
Derrow became captivated by the big buck’s unusual antlers and he spent hours watching him over the course of 2023.
“In the summer months, I would go and watch him every night after work,” Derrow says. I probably videotaped him 30 times in our bean field.”
But during hunting season the big buck was constantly giving Derrow the slip.
“I could never seem to catch up with him,” Derrow says. “I passed on a really nice mature buck that passed 20 yards under my stand because I was holding out for that cooler deer with the drop tines.”
He hunted until late in the season and never saw the droopy-beamed buck once from a treestand.
“Every night, I would get pictures of him,” Derrow says. “In the morning, I would walk down to my stand, and he’d be up at another stand right before shooting light, walking around on the clear other side of the property.”
With the 2023-24 season winding down, Derrow decided to hunt another buck on the property. He ended up shooting the same mature buck he had passed up earlier that season.
Catching Up with Ed in 2024
After hunting season ended, Derrow and his family got back to work making the farm into the whitetail haven they wanted it to be. They spent the summer months planting food plots, cutting trees, blocking trails, and creating new ones.
“We did all sorts of different stuff for land management. I wanted to keep that drop-tine deer in that area. We just wanted to make the property better all around, but I was specifically working for that deer. “
With the 2024-25 deer season approaching, the buck started making regular appearances in a bean field on the property. Derrow would head down there to watch him feed every evening when he got off work.
“I was getting really excited. I get excited every year, but this year was a lot more exciting just because I knew that deer was in the area.”
An outbreak of EHD, epizootic hemorrhagic disease, in nearby counties had Derrow on edge. EHD is a viral, often fatal disease transmitted by biting midges. It can hit whitetail populations hard, and since it seemed to be spreading, Derrow was getting increasingly worried.
“It was affecting almost every property in the area, including my cousins’ and uncle’s. You would just walk the property and find dead deer everywhere,” Derrow says. “I was just hoping I wouldn’t walk down in that river bottom one day and find that drop tine buck dead. He would disappear or not be on the cameras for a couple of days, and with all the EHD stuff going on, my head would be spinning, wondering if he died.”
Somehow the Derrow’s farm made it through the EHD outbreak untouched. When the season finally opened, Derrow focused his hunting efforts around the bean field where the droopy buck regularly fed. He hunted stands around the field for the first five nights of the archery season. Although Derrow saw the buck every time he climbed a tree, he never could get close enough for a shot.
“I knew he had four places he bedded all around the bean field, but he played the wind so smart that there was no way I could get in there without bumping him,” Derrow says. “I would get off work early and go down there thinking I had him tricked only to have him come out clear across the field. He was like 400 yards away every time I saw him.”
After the beans turned from green to brown in the fall, the droopy buck stopped hitting the field. So, Derrow turned his efforts to one of the food plots he had put in over the summer.
“I got off work and went down, [and] I didn’t have a ton of hope that I was going to see him because I wasn’t hunting the bean field where I had been seeing him every night,” Derrow says. “I got lucky though.”
Derrow had noticed that the droopy buck had been traveling with a nine-pointer. When that nine-pointer stepped into the food plot on October 16, he knew exactly what was coming out behind it.
“I put my binoculars up to make sure, and the only thing I saw coming through the weeds was those drop tines.”
When Derrow put down the binoculars and picked up his Mathews V3, the buck he’d been watching for two years had stepped right into the plot.
“He stood there like he was looking for me for what felt like 30 minutes, but was probably 30 seconds. Then he turned broadside at 32 yards.”
Derrow drew his bow and sent a 100-grain G5 Megameat mechanical broadhead through both of the deer’s lungs. He found his blood-covered arrow and, after he regained his composure, started dialing up reinforcements to help him recover the deer.
Three hours later, Derrow’s whole crew, including friends and family members, arrived at the farm to help him.
“My mom even came down,” Derrow says. “She never comes down for tracking jobs.”
However, they couldn’t find any blood to track once the team reached the food plot. After searching for awhile, Derrow was beginning to get discouraged.
“I knew I smoked him. I even heard him go down,” Derrow says. “I just decided to go down to where I heard him crashing. I got to the spot on the edge of the riverbank, and there was plenty of blood but no deer.”
It turned out the droop beam buck had dropped straight down a 25-foot embankment and was laying right next to the water.
“I felt this rush of excitement and relief and just started hugging everybody,” Derrow says. “I’ve gotten excited over deer, but I’ve never been that excited. I’ve shot a lot of big ones, but this one was so unique. I figured I would never get another opportunity at a deer like that.”
Once Derrow climbed down the riverbank and laid hands on his buck, he realized just how big he was. But they still had to figure out how to get the deer up that steep ledge and out of the woods.
“My dad wanted to bring the tractor down and haul him up, but I didn’t want him tearing up the bottom. There are still a few nice deer in there, and I didn’t want to mess up the rest of the season,” Derrow says. “So me, my brother, and my buddy dragged him inch by inch up the bank.”
While heaving the deer up the steep hill, they realized the curled under beams had an unexpected perk.
Read Next: Giant Drop Deer That Made Whitetail Hunting History
“There were roots sticking out of the side of the bank,” Derrow says. “We would drag him up about 5 feet at a time and then hang him from his drop tines on the roots. That way, we could take little breaks to catch our breath and then pull him up a bit more. That really saved us getting him up that river bank.”
The curvy-beamed buck had 13 scoreable points and is now at the taxidermist. When asked what he thinks the deer will score, Derrow brushed off the question.
“I quite frankly don’t care what he scores,” Derrow says. “He’s just a really cool deer. I like killing mature bucks, but a score is just a number. I don’t worry about those things.”
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