Ohio Produces Yet Again with Massive 190-Inch Trophy Buck

• Hunter: Robert Jones
• Buck Score: 190 inches (gross green score)
• Date of Harvest: September 29, 2024
• State of Harvest: Ohio
• Weapon of Harvest: Compound bow

Robert Jones’ 2024 deer season produced a massive, 4 ½-year-old whitetail buck. He had trail camera photos of the deer in 2023 and leading up to the 2024 deer season.

“I try to rotate farms on which we hunt, so that we do not put too much pressure and keep a good age structure,” Jones said. “I have thousands of trail camera photos and lots of film of him in velvet while summer scouting.”

Jones spent a lot of time glassing the deer from a barn that’s in the middle of the property. His first sighting of the buck was when the deer drunk out of a water puddle on the barn’s new concrete pad. Throughout the 2023 season, he monitored the deer via trail cams, but didn’t hunt it.

“We thought he was just a big-framed, 150-inch deer with tons of potential,” Jones said. “I found his sheds and confirmed my suspicion.”

Skip ahead to the 2024 season. On September 29, 2024, the weather was overcast and rainy. Jones eased into the field for an afternoon hunt.

Located close to the Ohio River, his hunting area consisted of terrain with steep ridges and flat tops. It’s old strip-mining ground, which makes for great beef cattle land and big buck country. The bowl-shaped field proved to be the center point of the buck’s core area.

Soon after settling in, deer started moving. First, a small 4-pointer. Then, two does and two button bucks. Afterward, a pile of turkeys pushed through.

Then, Jones heard a stick break. A couple minutes later, the giant deer materialized. It walked out to the right of his stand under a dead-fall tree. The buck stood behind a fence for about 5 minutes. Finally, it jumped over it.

After jumping, it stood on the field edge another 5 minutes. Then, it walked over toward a feeder the deer commonly staged up in before moving on toward a destination soybean field.

Jones drew back, anchored, and launched the arrow. The 30-yard, quartering-away shot was good. The deer ran a few paces and stopped in the field.

“He was humped up, and I was just waiting for him to fall in the field,” Jones said. “There were no windows through the thick foliage for a follow-up shot. After 15 minutes, he slowly went to the other end and hopped the fence. It rained about ½ inch in an hour, and any sign of him disappeared.”

Jones reviewed the shot on film and postponed the recovery until early the next morning. With the help of a tracker, they recovered it quickly.

“The dog, Tigger, and his trainer, John, are some of the best in the business,” Jones said.

Looking back, he feels certain tactics assisted in the harvest. He feeds protein, corn, and more. He plants soybeans and a lot of alfalfa and clover.

“It wasn’t until I introduced protein and strict management that we were shooting multiple deer over 160,” Jones said. “I try to pattern these deer on their way to food plots and use feeders to get them to stop and get a shot. I usually hunt over food plots, but with the drought we had last year, the deer cleaned up most crops before it was time to hunt.”

Without question, this deer means a lot to Jones. In addition to being a nurse and a beef farmer, deer hunting is a big part of his life.

“This deer represents all of the hard work, effort, and proves that you can in-fact grow big deer,” he said. “From spring planting to food plot maintenance to feeding to shed hunting, and best of all, harvesting these deer — we have so much time and effort into growing these animals. We hope and pray that we can get them through each season to see what they will become.”

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