Persistence paid off for a Pennsylvania archer who shot the buck of his life in January.
Scott Rodgers, 42, of Lewis Run, McKean County, harvested a 14-point trophy buck with an 18.5-inch internal spread with his crossbow.
He hunted most days during the early archery season, which began in October, and the general hunting season after Thanksgiving. But he didn’t get any money. After Christmas, he whipped out his crossbow for the late bow season because he loves spending time in the woods.
Rodgers was hunting about 15 minutes from his home on the afternoon of January 9. He was on a property with an apple orchard and dense undergrowth. He thought of an older 5 point buck he knew was on the property and thought it would be a good doe for this late in the hunting season.
“Hopefully I’ll get a chance on him,” he thought.
Five bucks soon appeared, and it wasn’t long before a 14-point buck came into view about 125 yards away. Behind him was a large 8-pointed deer.
“Oh my god, this is going to happen,” he recalls saying to himself as the deer approached him. At 40 yards he took the shot and the deer ran into a dense bush area. “I grabbed my crossbow, blindly jumped out of the ground and ran,” he said upon hearing the deer crack as he ran into a tree. “It was surreal. Everything was perfect.”
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He believes the buck was interested in the hind and dropped his guard.
“He was definitely in the rut, I could smell him. One of those females must have been in heat,” Rodgers said.
The 4.5 year old deer was estimated to weigh 185 to 190 pounds and the frame measured 147.5 inches.
“It is a blessing to harvest an animal like this. I was just lucky,” he said.
He shared some of the venison with the property owner, who told Rodgers he couldn’t think of anyone else in the world who deserved that dollar more.
Rodgers believes the deer resided on a nearby property that was felled from wood and then moved to that property where the hind had been feeding and grazing. Rodgers knew there was a large buck in the area but didn’t think he would ever see it.
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His game camera took a nighttime photo of the buck on September 22, then again four more nights in the fall.
“These deer in general, when you see a deer that big, don’t for the life of you think you’re going to harvest that buck. They’re so nocturnal,” he said.
He missed a big 8 point early in the archery season, but feels everything has worked out for the best. “There’s nothing that can hold me down. You have to keep going,” he said of hunting in colder weather after the holidays.
He tries to wait for mature bucks before taking a shot. “I’ve passed on a lot of deer this year,” he said of seeing some 6-point and 7-point bucks. He hunted on public and private property for more than three months this season.
“You mustn’t give up,” he said. “I still can not believe it. … It was like winning the lottery.”
Brian Whipkey is the outdoor columnist for USA TODAY Network’s websites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at[email protected] and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email using your login name on the home page of this site. Follow him on Facebook@whipkeyoutdoors.