Dustin Warren recently made good on a 2-year quest for a public land giant that had consumed his thoughts, plans, and preparation for his time in the deer woods. He shares the story of how it all went down below…
I started hunting this deer last October after I found him using a mock scrape I had a camera on. I was already in this area due to an 8-point I was after. After I harvested the 8, I soon began to chase after this new buck. I tried setting up mock scrapes to figure out his pattern, but with the rut in progress, there was no pattern.
I had him on camera a few times, and the only daylight picture I got of him was when he walked past my stand on November 10th, at 10:22 am. The one day that I decided to hunt a different county, he walks past my stand. I wasn’t able to kill him, even hunting all the way until the end of December, with no personal encounters.
Fast forward to this summer. The 1st week of July, I covered the area with trail cameras, scattered on logging roads, ridges, and a mineral site I had from the previous year on private land adjacent to the public ground I was hunting.
I got the 1st picture of him in July, and I was blown away. He was coming in to my mineral sight almost every single day until around late August.
It was about that time bear started moving in. I couldn’t keep them out of the area, so I had to stop with the minerals. I was planning on stopping after the 1st week of September anyways due to no hunting over any kind of bait here in West Virginia. I knew the buck hadn’t left the area so I started doing my homework from all the pictures I had of him coming and leaving the spot.
After about a week of boots on the ground in early September, I found what I thought was his bedding area, down the ridge about 300 yards in a briar thicket. I knew it was his home area, so I went back in around September 10th and threw out a camera on the logging road.
A few days later, I had him on camera traveling the logging road at 7pm. I went back a few days later and put a mock scrape out. I knew he was frequently using this area and this logging road, so I pulled my cameras and got out of there about a week from opening day.
I went back in to hunt on opening morning. The mock scrape had tons of activity, and the logging road was tore up with fresh rubs. The morning hunt was pretty quiet other than a small buck and a few does. That evening, I went back out with a feeling something good was going to happen.
There was no activity until 7:10pm, when I looked down the hill and saw the rear end of a deer. I stood up and got ready. After 20 seconds, it finally stepped up the hill and presented itself. I about had a heart attack! My buck was making his way to my location!
He was about 35 yards and walking closer. I couldn’t wait anymore. I drew back as he looked down the hill, and the next step he took was his last. My shot was right on the money, and the buck took off running straight down the mountain before crashing at the bottom.
Words couldn’t describe the excitement and the shock that I was in. I was completely blown away at this moment. I knew he was a world class buck, but really had no idea just how big he was. I climbed down, recovered my arrow, and started heading down the hill.
When I first walked up on the buck, I knew he was an absolute giant, possibly the biggest bow-killed buck in West Virginia. After taking several pictures, I called my buddies to come help drag him out. I had 5 friends who helped, and it took us over 2 hours to drag him back up the mountain.
After scoring the deer 3 times, a consistent score of 193.5″ was the tally. A true giant was down in West Virginia.
