It was the last day of Ohio’s 2001 deer gun season and Dewey Carpenter of Gahana,
Ohio was still in the hunt. He had spent the early part of the week hunting in southern
Ohio to no avail. It was now Saturday and he found himself hunting a farm in Knox
County, not far from his home. Dewey was in the woods about a half hour before
daylight on stand at a large beech tree at one end of the patch of woods he was hunting.
He would hunt on stand while he awaited his son-in-law’s arrival so they could make
some one man drives later in the morning.

Son-in-law Bobby Ballangee along with his nephew Billy arrived about 10 minutes
later and would walk to another stand on the far corner of the woodlot. This would
require that they walk across a recently cut corn field with a grassy knoll in the middle
that angled off toward the timber. As they were crossing the corn stubble, a deer jumped
up from the grassy area about 20 yards away and headed towards the woods. All Bobby
could see was a huge rack as the deer moved off in the predawn darkness. Bobby and
Billy continued on to the stand where Bobby would hunt. They would remain there for
about two hours.

Neither hunter saw any deer during the morning hunt and about 9:00 o’clock Bobby
and Billy made a small drive towards Dewey’s stand. They moved no deer and
eventually arrived where Dewey waited. Bobby began to tell Dewey about the huge
racked buck that he had seen in the predawn. He went on and on about the size of the
deer and the fact he could not take a shot at it because of the early hour and darkness.
After talking over the situation, they laid out a game plan and using the wind to their
favor, would work their way through the woods in the direction that the buck had
traveled.

The hunters and nephew Billy spread out and moved along the windrows heading towards
the far side of the woods in a effort to find the deer. After covering the woods and the
edges of it, they then crossed the corn field and headed back to Bobby’s truck. “We
stood by his truck and talked while Bobby unloaded his gun and prepared to leave as he
had business to attend to,” said Dewey. “I couldn’t decide whether to remain in this area
or to look up a friend and head to southern Ohio again. I finally decided that since I was
already here I might as well stay at least until noon. This is a good farm to hunt and
maybe I will see something.” 

“Bobby was ready to leave and had started his truck while we continued to talk. I told
him I was going to go back in and hunt until about noon,” continued Dewey. “So I
headed across the corn field almost in the same path Bobby had taken in the darkness that morning. I approached a fence and crossed over into an adjacent field with grass about two feet tall. I wanted to kind of walk across this field and make sure nothing was hiding in the tall grass. As I walked on into the field I suddenly saw the huge deer came right up out of the grass about 20 yards in front of me. I think because the truck was nearby and still running and there was activity about the truck, I was able to approach very close to the buck without him hearing me.”

Dewey continued, “When the buck stood it began running at an angle away from me
and I was able to get a good clean shot from the side. He did drop after he went a ways
farther but got back up and I shot again as he ran off.” Very excited now, Dewey spoke
again, “Bobby had heard a popping sound as he was closing the gate at the road and
decided they should come and check it out. They hurried into the field to help out. They
came in at an angle to where the deer was heading.”

  Billy and Bobby came on the run and the three stood in awe of the tremendous buck.
The buck was field dressed and they dragged the deer back to the truck. They drove to
nearby Johnstown where the deer was checked in and the crowds began to gather. “I
really had no idea what I had done, but others were excited with the size of the rack.
Many people wanted to get their photos taken with the buck. I was just enjoying the
celebrity of it all,” related Dewey. “When we took the deer to the meat processor, they
did not want me to leave it as they did not want to be responsible for the rack.”

“After leaving the processor, we stopped at a Subway store for lunch, but such a
crowd gathered that we were unable to eat our food for showing the deer and telling the
story of the hunt. One fellow wanted a picture so bad, he went to a nearby store and
bought a camera,” stated Dewey. “We must have been there more than an hour.”

“Very happy with my buck I took it to a taxidermist in Zanesville, Derry Null and he
reacted in the same way, and wanted me to wait while he caped it out so I could take it
home with me,” Dewey said. “I think it was at that point that it finally dawned on me that
I had taken a truly monstrous buck.”

The buck was rough scored at about 190 inches, and was officially scored by
Buckmasters Scorer Ed Waite on February 16, 2002. The BTR score is 184 6/8 and with
5.5% irregular inches the buck falls into the typical category for shotgun harvested deer.
The composite score is 207 7/8 inches.