2-Acre Virginia Property Produces 190-Inch Buck

This phenomenal Virginia buck fell to a well-placed arrow at the hands of bowhunter Jason Whitlow. The buck was consistently hitting white oak acorns, so Whitlow swooped in and capitalized. Photo courtesy of Jason Whitlow.

Jason Whitlow is a member of the Seek One crew, and he does all of his hunting in urban settings. This year in late August, he did some door-knocking, hoping to gain permission to hunt on some small properties in Virginia. Through online scouting he picked out a bunch of properties with specific land features — creeks and ridges in particular — that he believed would facilitate solid buck travel during the rut.

“Toward the end of August, I got permission to hunt on a particular property of less than 2 acres,” Whitlow explained. “I went out and did some scouting, and then I hung a trail camera in early September. I got pictures of a huge buck right away. I made four trips back to the area to knock on doors and try to get permission to hunt on adjacent properties so that I could have more stand options. I really studied the ridges in the area and learned how they all lay out.”

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Though Whitlow’s initial plan was to be prepared with great stand locations for the pre-rut and rut, the giant buck was moving too consistently to ignore in the early season. “For multiple reasons, I knew that I needed to kill the deer quickly,” Whitlow said. “He was consistent enough that I felt confident in going after him immediately. The area the buck was frequenting had a lot of chestnut oaks and a handful of white oaks right near the property line. I had my trail cameras near the white oaks, and he was hitting them consistently.”

Whitlow connected on the buck during his third sit, on the second day of Virginia’s archery season, after seeing some does and a few young bucks on the opener. “The following morning,” Whitlow said, “I got into my stand, and I believe first light was just before 7 a.m. At about 7:10 a.m., a deer started snorting out in front of me down by the nearby creek. My scent wasn’t blowing that way, so I’m unsure what spooked it. About 10 minutes later, a doe (probably the deer that had been snorting) and two fawns walked right up by me and headed for the white oaks where my trail camera had been capturing the buck. My cameraman and I turned around and watched the three deer feed on acorns. Eventually, they moseyed down the ridge towards another property that I have permission to hunt on.”

Whitlow was primarily planning to hunt Virginia during the rut, but when this monster was daylighting on his trail camera, there was no sense in waiting for the rut. It was time to strike. Photo courtesy of Jason Whitlow.

Whitlow turned around and settled back in. He admitted that his hopes that the buck would appear were somewhat low. Temps were fairly warm, but it was a “red moon” day, so that was going in his favor.

“Not two minutes later, I heard footsteps right behind us where we had just been looking,” he said. “There was no doubt in my mind that it was a deer. Initially, I thought it was the doe or one of her fawns. I turned around to identify the deer and saw the huge buck standing 20 yards away eating acorns. I told my cameraman, ‘Big buck. Big buck.’ I was reaching for my bow, and he directed me to stop. The buck had lifted its head and was looking around. A few moments later, he gave me the go-ahead to grab my bow.

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“I grabbed my bow and turned around,” he continued. “He started walking toward us and was right where the doe and fawns had been previously. Then, he hit a gravel walking path. At that point, he was only about 12 yards away. There was a branch in the way, but I drew my bow anyway. I held at full draw for probably 30 seconds; the buck knew that something wasn’t quite right. I needed him to take two more steps in order to clear the limb.”

Suddenly, the buck turned 180 degrees. Whitlow made a subtle mouth-grunt to stop him and with the monster quartering away, he released his arrow.

“He ran 30 yards and stopped,” Whitlow remembered, “and then we heard crashing. We celebrated and checked the footage. The shot looked great, so we climbed down and started seeing blood everywhere. We walked over to where we had last seen him, but he wasn’t there. Of course, we got a little bit worried. I didn’t have permission to access the property immediately next door or the property after that. Three properties away, though, I had written permission to hunt, and he had headed that way.”

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Whitlow and his cameraman looped around to that other property, hoping to see the buck either on that property or one of the other two parcels. “Sure enough,” he said, “we got over there and saw him lying dead against a log on one of the properties that I didn’t have permission to hunt on. After an anxious hour, I was relieved to get permission from the landowner to retrieve the deer.

“I hunt Ohio and Virginia every year,” Whitlow added. “I always imagined that if I took a buck of this caliber, it would be in Ohio. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision it happening in Virginia.”