Scott Esker Buck (2017)

Story:

All You Have To Do Is Ask

Originally Published: July 2018

By: Edson B Waite, Jr.

     Scott and Steve Esker keep tabs on a lot of whitetails roaming the various properties they hunt in Ohio, but they pay no attention to bucks wearing less than 140 inches of antler.

     This doesn’t mean either brother will actually burn a tag on the first 140-incher they see.  It means simply that the animal might be worth watching for three or four more seasons.

     Many of these bucks, like the one Scott arrowed in 2017, inevitably earn nicknames.

     “We called this buck Heavy D,” Scott said.  “He was 7 1/2 years old when I finally closed the book.”

     The Eskers watched Heavy D grow for four years, despite his low odds of surviving hunters on neighboring properties.

     The deer might’ve scored in the mid-180s in late June 2016, a real head-turner, but he disappeared in July.   When the Eskers heard a neighbor had shot a great buck shortly into the archery season, they assumed it was Heavy D, Photos of the dead deer even resembled the AWOL buck.

     They were surprised when Heavy D reappeared in late December.

     “My brother and I were both tagged out by then, so there was little we could do but watch from the sidelines and hope he would make it through another season,” Scott said.

     “I kept an eye on him from late December all the way into April.  On March 31, I spotted him for the first time ever in a cut cornfield about a half-mile away from where we had him on camera.

     “He was still carrying both sides of his rack,” Scott said.  “Three times over the next 10 days, I saw him in that field,” he continued.  “When he finally dropped his antlers around April 9 or 10, I began hunting for his sheds at every opportunity.”

     “I searched every parcel we had permission to hunt, and then knocked on a few doors to get additional permissions to shed hunt only,” he said.  “In total, I logged over 22 miles looking for them.”

     “Even though I was unsuccessful, I learned a lot of valuable information walking these new properties,” Scott said.

     “I figured this had to be his core area, and it was only half a mile between the cornfield and another property where I’ve had a camera and permission to hunt for the past 15 years.”

 “I had to find a way to get closer to him, as he would not come to any of the properties we had permission to hunt until the late season,” he continued.

     Scott knocked on six doors that summer, hoping to get closer to the deer’s early-season haunts.  He wasn’t successful until he saw an elderly woman walking her dog.

     “Just as she was entering her home, I came up the drive,” he said.  “After introducing myself, I explained my situation and asked if she’d allow me to bowhunt her property.  After several minutes of discussions about hunting, she told me deer frequented her yard because of the numerous fruit and nut trees.  She saw no reason I couldn’t hunt the place.”

     After giving Scott a signed permission slip, the woman explained the lay of the land and told him where the property lines were.

     “As I explored the property, I discovered she had a half-dozen or so apple, pear and chestnut trees, along with a stand of mature oaks and walnuts,” Scott said.

     “Before I left her home, I told her I loved her for giving me the opportunity to hunt her property, and she smiled and said, ‘Aw, I love you too.’  We hit if off perfectly!”

     “Before leaving, I put up a camera and poured some CWNS mineral (a product my brother Steve and I now own the rights to) on the ground,” he added.

     Within 10 days, Heavy D showed up on camera.  The deer visited the mineral site almost every day, and Scott collected thousands of pictures and trail camera videos of him all summer long.

     When the buck rubbed off its velvet in September, his visits dropped off to every three days.  Each appearance, though, put him there closer to daylight.

     “I so wanted to take him on opening day.  Taking a giant on opening day has been on my bucket list for quite some time,” he said.  “But I really felt I wouldn’t see him before the 5th or 6th of October.  That’s what the moon application on my phone pointed to.”

     The Thursday following opening weekend, Scott was not feeling well and was late settling into his stand.  Not long afterward, he spotted a doe 200-yards away in a bean field.

     When the deer walked to within 70 yards, Scott realized it was a small forkhorn.

     “While I was looking at the 4-pointer through my binoculars, I suddenly saw Heavy D step out between two little trees at the edge of the field.  He started walking down the edge toward me,” he said.

     “The property owner has a log splitter near the trees at the rear of her property, covered with a silver tarp.  The buck stepped right between two big walnut trees and stood right in front of it,” Scott said. 

     “I thought he was looking directly at the oak I was in, but that was just paranoia on my part.  He was likely looking over at the fruit trees and the succulent fruit on the ground.”

     “I thought he was going to head to the mineral, but he started coming my way.

     “I took the shot when he was about 20 yards, and he turned around and ran into the bean field, along with the little buck,” he continued.  “They veered left and disappeared into the trees.”

     “Right away, I called my brother and told him I had just put an arrow in Heavy D. I was still pretty shaken, and he could sense it in my voice,” Scott said.

     The dazed hunter took his time going down the tree.  He leaned his crossbow against the trunk and walked over to the field’s edge.  Finding the back end of his arrow was easy, thanks to the glowing Lumenok.”

     “I didn’t get a pass-through, but I was confident the Shwacker broadhead had done its job,” he said.  

     “What I held in my hand was 7 inches long, telling me there was 13 inches of arrow, plus the broadhead, still inside him.”

     Blood was sparse, so Scott waited for Steve to arrive before plowing ahead.  Meanwhile, it began raining.

     When Steve joined him, they started grid-searching the field, two or three rows at a time, looking left and right.

 “At one point, I looked over to Steve and all I could see was his head.  I asked what he was doing, and he told me he was standing in a hole,” Scott said.

     “The reason I bring that up is because the deer was lying only 20 yards from that hole, but we were unable to see it because of the terrain,” he added.

     The pair made about three circles of the bean field without any success, so Steve called a friend who knew someone with a dog.  Help – a man named Josh with a wire-haired dachshund named Recoil – arrived within the hour.

     The Eskers had met Josh the previous year when he helped a friend find a deer.  He simply asked them where the deer was standing and took Recoil to the spot.

     The dog went straight to the downed buck, less than 100 yards away.

     “It was crazy that we had not found it.  We’d walked all over that area,” Scott said.

     “As a small token of my appreciation, I bought my landowner a $100 gift card for her beauty salon and a $50 card for Max & Erma’s to enjoy a nice meal out with her son.  I will be sharing my harvest with them as well,” Scott said.