Nov. 30 was the day before Austin Amacher’s 29th birthday, and he spent it hunting with his family in Pennsylvania. The group of four got started at daybreak on a tract of state game land in Elk County.
“We’d had some success [on a deer drive] that morning, with my 17-year-nephew, TJ, getting a 10-point buck at a spot I usually hunt,” Amacher tells Outdoor Life. “We got his deer out of the woods, then went back to do some smaller, mini drives.”
The public land they were hunting was near Amacher’s home in Ridgeway in an area he knew well. When they returned there for another drive, Amacher and another nephew got set up as blockers while the other hunters started pushing.
“My other nephew, Benji, and I were sitting on the ground waiting,” he says. “We were about 500 yards apart, and I’d only been sitting for about 30 minutes when three does came right up to me through the woods.”
Amacher says the does kept looking behind them as they approached. He figured they were checking out his brother, who was one of the drivers.
“Then I saw the head of a buck coming out of a laurel thicket about 35 yards away. He looked at me, but then he turned and kept walking toward an opening in the thicket.”
Amacher readied his .30-06. When the buck stepped into the opening, he fired.
“I couldn’t tell if I hit him, because he turned and came right to me,” Amacher says. “At about 15 yards, right in front of me, I got the buck back in my scope and fired again.”
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The buck was so close that Amacher could see blood on its side as it ran away after his second shot. He then watched the deer travel another 20 yards before it fell over. When Amacher walked up to inspect it, he saw that both of his 165-grain bullets had struck the deer. One hit the buck just behind the shoulder, and the other in its neck. He then called Benji and told him he’d just shot the biggest deer of his life.
The two hunters field dressed the buck right away. But they were a mile or more from the road, which made for a long drag.
“Fortunately, an inch of snow on the ground made the dragging a little easier,” Amacher says. “But it still took us 90 minutes to get the buck out using tow straps around our waists and shoulders.”
They never weighed the deer, but Austin believes the 12-point buck weighed at least 150 pounds dressed. It has a mostly typical rack with an inside spread of 19.75 inches, and it was unofficially green scored at just over 174 inches. It would be a trophy anywhere, but especially in Pennsylvania’s hard-hunted public land units.
Amacher says he never knew the buck was in the area, but he recognized it from seeing trail cam photos that some other hunters had showed him. One of those pictures was taken more than five miles away from where Amacher killed the buck.
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