Big Ohio 10-Point Fooled After Two-Year Chase

Corey Gidcumb had no idea when he knocked on the door of a man he’s known for a while that it would lead to downing an incredible whitetail buck.

“I approached the guy last year about hunting some of his property, and I should have done it sooner,” Corey says.

Baiting is legal in Ohio, so Corey placed a bait pile right away to try to get some intel on the local deer.  In late October 2022, he began getting photos of an extremely large 10-pointer. Knowing the deer was there motivated Corey to pass some pretty decent bucks.

On his third or fourth hunt there that year, he had an encounter with the buck, seeing him out of range. A week later, they would meet again. But instead of going to the bait, the buck skirted it and walked through an opening where Corey could shoot. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the buck to stop. It was two months before Corey saw him again, so he assumed the buck was dead during that time.

So Corey moved to another spot a couple miles away. During a late December hunt at the new location, he had a beautiful 8-pointer come in. But as he raised his crossbow and looked through the scope, it was fogged up. No amount of rubbing would clear the glass.

“I guess I had been breathing on the scope or something, but no matter what I did it would not clear up,” Corey recalls.

That was it for the hunt, and the buck ventured off. A week later to the day, while hunting that same stand, the buck showed up again. This time Corey’s scope wasn’t fogged up and he killed the deer.

As it often happens, the big one he was after showed back up on camera in mid-January 2023. In July, knowing the deer was there, Corey began putting the feed out, stepping up his game a bit and switching from corn to strictly Big Tine products.

“I think I literally got thousands of pictures of him from July until I shot him. He was coming in during daylight hours. I got pictures of him all the way up until he shed his velvet,” Corey explains.

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All that work in the off-season paid off for Corey. On Oct. 1, 2023 (opening day of Ohio’s archery season), Corey had the buck at 18 yards but was never presented a shot. A week later, on Oct. 7, Corey was able to put a crossbow bolt in the buck, closing the two-season chapter on this big typical 10-pointer.