Ohio Hunter Swaps Recurve for Compound to Down Big Buck

• Hunter: Pierce Moore
• Buck Score: 194 inches (gross) / 189 ½ (typical)
• Date of Harvest: September 30, 2024
• State of Harvest: Ohio
• Weapon of Harvest: Compound bow

“It all started the week before the 2023 Ohio whitetail season opener,” said Pierce Moore. “I had taken my son behind an old barn and set a trail camera. We’d lived at the place for a couple years and never saw anything of any size as far as bucks go. There also wasn’t much for woods, but it was a spot I could get to quickly and take the kids with me hunting in the hayloft.”

A day or two before deer season, Pierce’s wife asked if he’d checked the camera behind the barn. He hadn’t yet but decided to do so.

“I ran outside with a new SD card in tow and swapped the new one with the card inside the camera,” Pierce said. “Upon coming inside, my wife had the computer out and ready alongside our two children.”

Pierce inserted the SD card and begun scrolling through photos. “Wouldn’t it be funny if a big buck showed up,” she said.

“Three clicks later and there he stood,” Pierce noted. “It was a big main-frame 9-pointer with a drop tine.”

Pierce knew he didn’t have much to work with property-wise. If he bumped the deer, the game was likely over. Even so, he hunted with his kids in the barn to keep them engaged. They hunted numerous days without much luck, and certainly without seeing the big deer.

Then, one afternoon, that changed. “I could hear a deer coughing in its bed less than 60 yards off the side of the barn,” Pierce said. “But when it got up, it went straight to the creek.”

Several afternoons after that, Pierce and family had soccer practice, and the buck hit his cameras multiple times at last light. They just couldn’t cross paths with the deer.

“As November started to close in, I knew my chances were getting slimmer,” Pierce said. “I knew I had to make a move. I hadn’t ventured out on the property, as I had other farms I hunted, and never planned on hunting this one. I had to figure out where exactly this deer was bedding and formulate a plan to get a crack at him.”

On one scouting trip, he found a massive buck bed only 70 yards from his house. Several rubs marked the perimeter of the bed. Pierce couldn’t believe it. The deer was completely comfortable bedding close to the house, and only 20 yards from a road. It had thick cover to conceal it, and that was enough.

On October 28, 2023, he decided to crash into the downwind side of the thicket the deer was bedding in. As he was searching for a tree to hang a stand, Pierce caught movement in the thicket.

“I quickly dropped into some cover,” Pierce said. “Here came the drop-tine deer making his way through the thicket right at me. I tried my best to disappear into a treetop.”

The massive deer stood about 12 yards away, and started drinking at the creek. Just as the buck eased out of the waterway, Pierce raised his recurve and readied to take aim. He needed one more step, and he’d draw and shoot.

Suddenly, the deer bolted and ran to 30 yards, which was outside Pierce’s effective range with the recurve. “I was sick, my effective range was anything 20 and in,” he said. “I especially was not going to take a shot on a deer that was on high alert.”

Several days and weeks passed with no sign of the buck. The drop-tine deer was nowhere to be seen. Pierce started hunting another farm where he’d shot a big typical 9-pointer. Still, he kept tabs on his cameras.

In late December, the deer walked in front of his camera, but was slightly busted up. Two weeks later, he spotted the deer in cornfield about a mile up the road. So, he had hope for the next season.

Due to their growing family, Pierce, his wife, and their kids moved to a new house about 15 minutes away.

“I knew this might make things a bit more difficult, because there might be certain things out of my control the following season,” he said. “We delivered a healthy baby boy on April 3 and made the new home cozy.”

Within a few months, he heard news of a big deer spending time in the area around his old house. Fortunately, Pierce still had access to the farm and decided to deploy some trail cameras. One camera was at the bottom of a thicket the deer regularly bedded in. The day after posting it, the buck stood there on camera.

The deer was still a giant main-frame 10-pointer with kickers and the same big drop tine, but longer. Sadly, the photos went cold. Instead, he started getting photos of dogs, which obviously pushed the buck from the area. As deer season neared, the buck reappeared on a camera in a different location.

“Other hunters started to find out about the deer, and they too were making their moves to hunt it,” Pierce said. “I knew I was not going to be so conservative as I had been in 2023.

“The first day of the 2024 season, we were greeted with hurricane Helene,” Pierce said. “It was an absolutely miserable evening in the stand, as rain dumped for hours with no deer in sight.”

The next day, the wind was not ideal, and he opted to forgo the hunt. Unsurprisingly, because the wind was in its favor, the buck showed that afternoon. “I knew I had made the right decision, as the buck came in directly downwind of where I would have been set up,” he said.

Monday, September 30, was the third day of season. At 1 p.m., the deer walked by a cell camera in a different spot. It’d moved to a different bedding area.

“The storms from the hurricane seemed to have disrupted the atmosphere, and the winds were often changing throughout the first few days of season,” Pierce said. “I knew where I had to be and decided to leave work a little early to get my stuff prepped to be in the stand in a timely manner.

“I came home from work, informed my wife that the deer had made a mistake and bedded in a different location, and that tonight was going to be the night,” Pierce noted. “I packed my stuff and headed for the door with a good luck kiss from my wife. I dove into a steep ravine and edged my way along the top third of the ridge glassing every thirty yards or so as I made my way to the spot I wanted to set up.”

With the wind out of the southwest, it’d soon switch to northeast. As he neared his hunting spot, he started looking for trees to climb into. He had two options — a crooked honey locust with two big leads coming off the base or a shag bark hickory. He went for the honey locust and climbed into the tree.

Pierce settled in around 18 feet. Also, he broke off a few limbs and zip tied them to his treestand for added cover. Just as he hoisted his bow and got still, it started to rain. The wind shifted, too.

“I wasn’t in the tree very long when I caught tines moving out in front of me,” Pierce said. “The tines seemed low to the ground, and when I saw the split G3, I knew it was him. The buck moved a couple steps and started to destroy a tree.”

With the wind at its back, the deer moved in Pierce’s direction. It briefly disappeared and reappeared at 35 yards. Within seconds, he drew back his compound and took a 30-yard shot. The shot appeared to center the front of the lungs.

Two hours later, he started trailing the deer. The deer was pouring blood and running downhill. His hopes were high.

“I was at a fast walk, knowing that I must be getting closer to putting my hand on what is the biggest whitetail I have ever seen from a treestand,” Pierce said. “Suddenly, the buck jumps up at less than 10 yards. I was instantly sick to my stomach and second-guessing my shot. I backed out and feared for the worst.”

He recalled a local guy who’d started a drone deer recovery business. Pierce reached out to him, and the fellow quickly located the buck about 100 yards from where Pierce jumped it. Only thing was, the deer was still alive. All they could do was wait overnight and check again the next morning.

“I was instantly sick again and couldn’t believe the deer had withstood what I thought was a perfect shot,” he said. “Lane with Williams Deer Recovery offered to come back the next morning to confirm if the deer was dead or in the same spot. It was a sleepless night for both of us, to say the least. We hit the road just before daybreak with high hopes of finding the deer in his final resting place.”

A quick drone flight revealed the deer had only moved another 10 yards. It was floating dead in the creek.

“I received permission from the neighbors to get my deer and luckily was able to share the recovery moment with my wife, kids, dad, stepmom, and father-in-law,” Pierce noted. “As the brute emerged from the water, I could see the exit hole, and it was very low and back. But the entry was perfect. The only sense that I could make from it was that the arrow redirected off the shoulder pushing it down and back. Upon removing the organs, it was a one-lung and liver hit.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Pierce concluded. “There laid a main-frame 10-pointer, with 12 ½ inches of extras including a point off of his base, a kicker off his G2 and G3, and finally the drop-tine. All of the memories of hunting the deer filled my head with my kids on the hayloft floor while I sat on a couple haybales. The evening I had him at 12 yards. And here we were making the final memory of recovering the deer with my whole family. It will undoubtedly be one of my favorite memories for years to come.”

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