16-Point Buck Reveals Itself with Giant Fart

Ohio hunter Cory Arbogast has a system that consistently produces opportunities at mature bucks. He looks for small properties — sometimes tiny ones — in non-hunted areas. One of his favorite spots is barely 50 yards wide in places, but it backs up to a neighborhood on one side and a large farm that’s never hunted on the other.

“It’s a good spot. I used to run cameras there, and I would get photos of good bucks, but it would just be one photo and then they were gone,” Arbogast said. “They weren’t living on the property, but they used it as a travel corridor. I eventually quit running cameras at all. I knew if I hunted, there would be a mature buck passing through, but cameras didn’t help pattern them.”

Arbogast has a system for locating small properties near non-hunted areas that pays off with big bucks. All images courtesy of Cory Arbogast

Still, even without cameras Arbogast was aware of a huge buck living in the area. Several nearby friends had seen the deer. Arbogast wasn’t necessarily hunting that specific animal, but knowing it was around was in the back of his mind when he climbed into his stand early on the morning of October 26.

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The hunter had been in the stand about 20 minutes that morning. It was calm and a cold front had moved through the night before, dropping the temperature. The woods were extremely quiet and still. Not even the squirrels were making much noise. But suddenly, that stillness was broken by what Arbogast described as, “the longest and loudest fart I have maybe ever heard.” The sound was close enough that Arbogast was able to pinpoint the deer’s location, even though he couldn’t see it through the thick cover. A few seconds after passing the gas the buck belted out a deep grunt, and then another. Arbogast lifted his own grunt call and grunted back.

The buck tipped Arbogast to his location by passing gas.

A few seconds later, a giant buck materialized from the cover just 19 yards to Arbogast’s right. The hunter knew immediately it was the big buck everyone had been talking about. While the buck was plenty close, Arbogast was turned too far to make the shot. He slowly started to twist in his stand to face the buck but as he did, his shirt rubbed against the metal rail of his stand. While the sound wasn’t loud, it still made the buck jump.

The deer took one leap and covered about 6 yards. When he landed, he stopped to look around for the source of the noise. That was all Arbogast needed to get his Ravin crossbow turned, find the buck’s shoulder in his scope, and take the shot.

The buck spooked as Arbogast raised his crossbow, but it stopped just long enough for a shot.

The hit looked perfect, but being on a small property, Arbogast didn’t want to risk pushing the buck by bumping him before he was down. He sat in the stand for another two and half hours. As he sat, a steady parade of does passed by. “I probably saw 40 does that morning. I had 20 standing around me at one time,” Arbogast said.

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Once he finally climbed down, Arbogast went to the spot where the deer had been standing. There was no blood and no sign of his crossbow bolt. Following the trail the buck had taken, he covered another 50 yards and still found no sign of a hit. But then he saw his bolt beside the trail and a bit of blood. After that, the blood was steady on both sides of the trail.

After starting out light, the blood trail quickly picked up and led Arbogast to the buck.

The buck left the property he had been hunting and entered another property that Arbogast had already secured permission to search. Following the heavy trail, he soon came to a massive thicket, where he found his deer piled up.

“It was so thick. I only had to drag the deer 50 yards to get to the road, but the brush and small trees were so tight that it took a while. It was a tough drag,” Arbogast said.

The buck’s giant body and thick cover made for a difficult drag back to the truck.

The whitetail was just as massive as Arbogast’s buddies had described. The big 6x7 frame had a triple split on one brow and a split on the other for a total of 16 scorable points. Arbogast said he doesn’t get real hung up on score as long as the deer is mature, but he and two friends who were experienced measurers each put a tape to the rack and came up within one inch of each other at a whopping 187 inches.

The big buck had a heavy 6x7 frame totaling 187 inches.

“Hunters should know you don’t necessarily have to have big property or a giant farm to regularly take big bucks,” Arbogast said. “Sometimes the right small chunk of land can yield a mature buck year after year. Just make sure you have permission to look for your deer on nearby properties in case you need it for trailing.”

And if you hear a giant fart from a thicket on a still morning, it’s a good idea to pay attention.

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