OHIO MAN TRYS TO PASS OFF H.F DEER AS WILD

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By Mike Moore
Editor

Wednesday, December 31, 2008 8:18 AM CST
Circleville, Ohio - Rob McCarley is no stranger to seeing - and ultimately shooting - big deer in Ohio's woods.

But the buck the Circleville farmer scored on Dec. 8 was not just another big deer.

This one, a big 17-point nontypical taken on private land in southern Franklin County, green scored at 220.

It was McCarley's seventh buck that will qualify for the Buckeye Big Buck Club, which for inclusion requires a minimum of 160 inches for nontypical deer. Three of those bucks scored at 185 or better, and all of them were killed with a bow. Maybe even more remarkable is that all seven of these deer were killed within a 20-mile radius of metropolitan Columbus.


McCarley, 47, shot the 220-class buck, his biggest to date, on Dec. 8, the Monday following gun season. The story of the hunt is not a long, drawn out affair, to be sure.

"From when I saw this deer to the time I shot it was about two minutes," he said. "It was one of those things where from the time I saw him come into the woods, saw he was a shooter and let the arrow go it was about two minutes total. That's probably a good thing, I guess, because it didn't give me time to get nervous."

McCarley hadn't been in his tree stand long before the big buck approached from the backside, walking within 20 yards of McCarley's position.

"He was looking, and he could tell there was something wrong," McCarley said. "So, that's when I shot him."

McCarley, using a compound bow, shot the bruiser in the neck, not the most ideal of locations but the buck was looking straight at him when McCarley took the chance.

The tougher part, however, was in the track. It took McCarley three hours to trail and eventually find the deer.

It was a perfect day for hunting, McCarley reasoned, given that a fresh blanket of snow had fallen during the weekend. Warmer temperatures on Dec. 8, though, meant there was still some snow on the ground, but also places where melting snow had left bare spots on the landscape. It made for a tough track with little blood for McCarley to follow.

"He was bleeding, but he was just dripping blood, not pouring it out," McCarley said. "In the snow, I could follow his trail, but in the spots where the snow was melting I would lose him again. Eventually, I lost (the trail) altogether, so I just started making circles."

The buck, it turned out, had traveled about 500 yards after the shot.

"The entry wound was up high and there wasn't no exit wound because I shot straight onto him," McCarley said. "There wasn't any real hole for the blood to come out. But, as soon as he laid down he just poured it out in buckets. I think he had bled on the inside the whole time he was running around."

When McCarley finally did locate the deer, the find was impressive. The main beams are 8 inches in circumference where they come out of the buck's head, and he said it's impossible to completely wrap a hand around the area where the brow tines meet the main beams.

"And it holds a lot of that on some of those other circumference measures, so that's what will help him score so good," McCarley said.

McCarley, who said all of his bigger deer have been killed in either Franklin or Pickaway counties, continues to be impressed by the quality of the state's bucks.

"Every year, you hear about more and more big deer being killed," he said. "Ten years ago, you hardly ever heard about a 200-inch deer being killed, but now there's a half dozen a year."

The first person McCarley called was a buddy from his days at Grove City High School, Mark Hemming, who now happens to be the district manager for the Division of Wildlife in southeast Ohio.

"That evening, (McCarley) called me at home; it was about 9:30 or 10,"_Hemming said. "I said 'did you kill a big one, did you?' And he said 'Oh, yeah.' He wouldn't have called me that late otherwise."

So, why is it that more often than not McCarley seems to find himself in the company of large bucks?

"He spends a lot of time scouting," Hemming guessed. "He's a full-time farmer and he sees a lot of acreage ... In combine time, he gets to observe a lot of wildlife."

In their younger years, Hemming and McCarley spent a lot of time trapping together. When Hemming was manager of Cooper Hollow Wildlife Area several years ago he was there when McCarley shot his first turkey.

"There's just a lot of firsts with us," Hemming said. "I was the best man in his wedding and he actually waited until trapping season (closed) that year and he got married the day after."




NOW FOR THE REAL STORY

An Ohio hunter who reported he had killed a nontypical buck green scoring 220 inches in the wild and with a bow has been cited by the Ohio Division of Wildlife for providing false information to a check station.

The Ohio DOW originally reported to media outlets that the huge buck, taken by Rob McCarley of Circleville, Ohio, on December 8 had been killed in Franklin County with a bow on open lands as reported to them by McCarley. It was said that McCarley has killed seven deer that would qualify for the state’s Buckeye Big Buck Club, two of which exceeded 185 inches, not counting the reported buck.

On Monday, Vicki Ervin, communications manager for the DOW, clarified the earlier report through an email that stated the deer was taken legally, but not in Franklin County, not in the wild and not with a bow. McCarley allegedly took the deer on a pay-to-hunt preserve.

“It was reported to state wildlife officers that McCarley paid $12,500 and shot the deer with a rifle,” Ervin writes. Misreporting such information is a crime. Ervin said McCarley has been cited for providing false information to a check station and attempting to pass off the buck as killed in the wild with a bow. The citation was filed in Circleville Municipal Court.