Robert Flannery had never seen the giant Ohio buck he shot Nov. 4 until that afternoon, when he got a notification from one of his cellular trail cams. Flannery, 52, owns the property where he hunts in Preble County, and he was making some improvements there when the photo came in.
“I was working on an elevated homemade shooting house, hanging outside of it fiddling with some windows,” Flannery tells Outdoor Life. “That’s when a remote camera I had 400 yards away across a cut corn field showed a small buck, then a giant mega buck.”
Flannery would’ve stuck around, but he had to take his dog to the veterinarian. He has multiple cellular trail cams hanging around his property, and he says the buck was making the rounds that day. It showed up on multiple cameras before Flannery made it back to his stand to hunt that evening.
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“About 5 p.m. I saw a small buck across the corn field. Then the big buck came out,” Flannery says. “I had some does near my blind and the little buck came all the way across the field to check out the does.”
Flannery says the huge buck stood across the field watching the small buck come to the does near his elevated shooting house. Then a third, smaller buck materialized and headed across the field toward the mega buck.
“The two bucks looked at each other, then the smaller one turned around and headed back to me across the corn,” Flannery explains. “That’s when the bigger buck headed my way. He kept coming until he got into some low grass next to the corn field, just 25 yards from my blind.”
The deer was walking slowly when Flannery raised his Parker Thunderhawk crossbow. He put a red dot on the buck’s vitals and shot. The bolt hit the buck a bit high, and the Rage two-blade expandable broadhead hit the buck’s spine.
“I shot him a second time just to make sure, and he was down for good.”
He immediately called his son Jacob, told him excitedly what had happened, and asked for help recovering the buck.
“I didn’t want to get out of the blind because I was just too shook up, excited beyond words,” Robert says. “I wanted to get my wits together before Jacob showed.”
At dark Jacob arrived with an ATV, along with Robert’s grandsons, Lucas and Corbin, ages 6 and 8. He says the whole family was laughing, thrilled with the buck he’d shot.
“We started counting points on the buck’s rack, and we were so excited we kept getting different counts each time we tried. [Then] we loaded up the deer and took it to a butcher to be processed.”
The 18-point buck was not weighed or measured by an official scorer. But Flannery says the rack was unofficially green scored as a non-typical by his friend Bob Bowling, who put it at 192 6/8 inches. Flannery says he plans to have the buck mounted so he can cherish it in his home.
He’s also learned since tagging the buck that at least a few other hunters were watching it, too. He says other people in the area have showed him their own trail cam photos.
“I think that deer ranged a good bit, maybe a mile or more from what I’ve learned,” Robert says. “I’ve really had a lot of nice people who knew about the deer congratulate me in getting it. There are plenty of quality, ethical folks out there who were glad for me.”
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