Mark Hammer Buck
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Story:
Five Minutes from Home
The shortest journeys sometimes lead to the most memorable destinations.
Published: Winter 2015
By: Edson B. Waite, Jr.
Mark Hammer didn’t need to examine his bloody arrow, and there was no reason to follow the drops. But he did anyway.
He’d seen the oxygen-starved deer collapse only 40 yards from his tree. He was looking at it when he texted his father from his stand.
Touching the arrow and seeing the evidence, right down to the swirls of red in the creek the buck had jumped, helped convince Mark that he hadn’t been hallucinating. He’d been wrong about only one thing: the size of the antlers, which he’d guessed were in the 190-inch range.
The rack was way bigger than that.
This happened on Nov. 4, 2014, his first day back home from four days of hunting with his dad in southern Ohio. It had rained while he slept in his own bed that night, and Mark didn’t exactly welcome the alarm.
He thought seriously about ignoring it, but he ultimately roused himself, dressed and drove the five minutes to the property he hunts.
“For the past eight years, I have been able to share (20 acres) with three friends,” he said. “Since it was a Tuesday, I knew I would be alone.”
“About 20 yards from my stand, I took out my EverCalm stick and rubbed a good amount on a tree downwind. in the past, it has helped cover my scent,” he said.
He didn’t have to wait long for dawn.
Soon after a family of raccoons squeezed noisily into a nearby hollow tree just before daybreak, Mark glimpsed a doe moving toward a bedding area. She passed within 30 yards of him, completely unaware she had an audience.
Several minutes later, three more does took the same trail into the thicket.
After hearing more footfalls, Mark spied a small 100-inch buck coming in from a different direction, immediately downwind of his tree. Deer No. 6 was also a buck, smaller than the first one.
“I had already seen more deer to that point than I had seen during all four days in southern Ohio,” he said.
“I waited 15 minutes before doing my first rattling sequence because I didn’t want to call back those small bucks.”
“I like to rattle good and loud when it’s windy,” he continued. “I rattled for about two minutes. A little later, I spotted movement in the same direction from which the does had come.”
The new arrival was definitely a shooter buck, between 80 and 90 yards away, but coming closer.
“At that point, the deer had several options. If it continued following the does’ trail, it would pass me at about 30 yards. If it chose another path, it could come as close as 10,” Mark said.
While he was waiting to see which path the deer would choose, it stopped to work a scrape and to lick an overhead branch.
“I was on my feet, bow in hand,” he said. “At 80 yards, its headgear looked like it was full of brush.”
The buck took the closer trail. When there was one remaining big tree between them, Mark drew as the deer’s eye passed behind it.
“I held tight, getting a good view of its rack as the buck proceeded into a stand of tall thin trees. It was shaking its head as its antlers hooked each tree, making all kinds of noise and aggravating the animal.
“I became concerned that I’d forgotten something, so I checked my bow, arrow, the rest and release. Everything seemed to be in the right place when I returned my attention to the buck now only I5 yards away, approaching at a slight angle. My dad’s advice ran through my mind in a split second: Find a spot, get on target, smooth release so I was as ready as I was ever going to be,” Mark continued.
“My mind racing, I quickly picked two spots free of obstructions, the first at about 12 yards and the second at about 10. As the buck crossed the 12-yard mark, I went ‘Baaahhhh!’”
“It simply kept walking. It was like slow motion, speeded up. At the next clean opening, I hit the trigger.”
“I saw a big spot of red on the deer’s side. It was just walking off as if nothing had happened, maybe a little faster, if anything,” Mark said.
“I had to swing around the tree to follow its course, while at the same time frantically trying to nock another arrow.”
“By the time, I came to full draw, the deer was already 30 yards away. While I was looking for an opening through which to thread another arrow, it went down into a little creek and then up the other side.”
“I was just about to touch the trigger when the buck stepped sideways, then took another sidestep, and then three backwards. I could feel the smile forming on my face.
“The deer flopped over, kicked once, and then was still,” Mark said, “and I started shaking. A minute or so later, I tried to text my dad, but it was pretty illegible the first time. I finally managed to tell him I’d shot the biggest deer I’d ever seen.”
“Dad replied with, ‘When you find it, send me a picture.’”
“I texted back that the deer was down, only 40 or so yards away. I was just giving it and me some time, well mostly me,” he added.
Mark was in no shape to descend his tree.
“While I waited, two more small bucks came by my tree, and neither sensed the buck lying there on the forest floor. One passed within 15 yards of the dead one.”
“When I finally got down from the stand, being the scent nerd that I am, I actually removed my Scent-Lok hunting clothes and put them in the 2-gallon zip bag I always carry for that purpose. Thinking back, it was kind of anti-climactic behavior on my part,” he said.
Mark walked over to his arrow, which was buried in the ground and covered in bright pink blood.
“I don’t know why. I knew exactly where the deer was lying, but I instinctively began following the blood trail. It was the best blood trail I had ever followed.”
“I walked the 35 yards to where it crossed the creek. There was a little backwater eddy covered with leaves, and the water was completely pink from blood,” he added.
From 15 yards, Mark gazed at the downed deer and realized his initial estimate of 190 inches was well below what the antlers would tally.
“I had to call my wife to tell her of my good fortune. She was on her way to the school where she teaches second grade. She was just pulling into the parking lot.”
Mark was barely able to explain what he’d done, but his wife got the general idea. His friends didn’t believe him, at first.
“I had to do a selfie with me and the deer to convince my buddies it was real,” he said. “Then I had to leave that deer lying in the woods, unguarded, while I went the three miles home to get my three-wheeler. Those were quite possibly the longest 20 minutes of my life!”