Ohio Hunter Ends 3-Year Chase for 214-Inch Buck

Ohio hunter Brandon Sheets knew there was a giant buck — the biggest he’d ever seen — hanging around his hunting area. He’d gotten a picture of the deer late in the 2022 season, and had high hopes that it would stick around to the following year. In 2023, Sheets put out more cameras on the property and scouted heavily in the late summer, identifying bedding areas, food sources, and travel corridors between the two in the area where the buck had been.

After chasing the buck for three years, Brandon Sheets had high hopes that 2024 would be his year. All photos courtesy of Brandon Sheets

But despite all the work and extra cameras, Sheets only got photos of the buck twice. “He was just elusive; there was no pattern on when or where he would show up,” he said. Despite hunting hard and passing numerous good bucks in hopes of getting a shot at the monster, Sheets never saw the buck on the hoof and ended the season by taking a different mature buck from the farm.

The buck had no discernible pattern and only showed on camera sporadically.

In 2024, he was even more determined to find the big deer. He put out more cameras and did more scouting, but he was worried. EHD had hit the area hard late in the season. Dead deer turned up during the summer and photos of any deer were few and far between. The big buck never showed and Sheets worried that it had succumbed to EHD like so many of the other bucks in the area.

After going through a round of EHD in the area, Sheets was happy to see the buck return to the area.

But everything changed in October, when Sheets finally got a photo of the buck. The deer was even bigger than it had been the past two seasons, and Sheets was ecstatic. He vowed to hunt as much as possible. On the evening of November 8th, just as Sheets was about to climb down from the evening sit, he looked up to see a massive bodied buck at 70 yards. It was too dark to clearly see the antlers, but Sheets had a feeling it was the giant he had been chasing. He gave the buck plenty of time to move on, then quietly climbed down and snuck out of the area. As he waited for the buck to vacate, he got an alert from a nearby camera. He opened the photo and confirmed his suspicion that it was the big buck, and he had finally seen it in person. Sheets didn’t sleep much that night as he went over his options for the next evening’s hunt.

Figuring the buck was on a hot doe, Sheets decided to start a bit earlier that evening and slip in closer to a nearby doe bedding area with his climbing stand. He was set up and ready at about 1 o’clock the next afternoon. The wind was good, but Sheets fretted over a small area where he thought deer might slip in downwind of his setup.

Sheets returned to the area where he had gotten a photo of the buck the evening before in hopes that it was still around.

At around 3 a pair of a does and a 140-inch buck came in and bedded right below Sheets. The wind was marginal for where they bedded, but they seemed relaxed and Sheets was more confident now that he had seen deer that close. One of his cameras went off and he opened the app to see a nice 160-inch buck cruising nearby. He suspected a hot doe was in the area.

All of the sudden, the three bedded deer all stood and crashed off. The wind was still consistent, but Sheets worried they had smelled him and he’d been busted. He texted his brother that the bedded deer had blown out and that he was afraid they had smelled him.

About then, a lone doe came running in from directly downwind. Then Sheets heard the loudest, most guttural grunt he’d ever heard, soon followed by more.

He saw the antlers first. The wide, heavy rack left no doubt that he was looking at the big buck he’d been after for three years. The deer was at 40 yards and closing, paying no attention to the bad wind. Sheets remembers thinking to himself, “Oh God, that’s him.”

When the deer got to 25 yards, it turned just enough to expose the shoulder. Sheets whispered to himself, “just pay attention, you’ll have time to shake later.” He took aim and squeezed the trigger on his crossbow. The bolt hit with a crack and the giant buck took off, stumbled, and then took off again. Sheets texted his wife, Madison, and then his brother, Ryan, to tell them he had just shot the buck. His brother laughed him off and said he was lying. After some convincing, he jumped in the truck to head that way. Madison and the couple’s two daughters were also heading his way to be a part of the tracking and hopeful recovery.

Even after locating the downed buck, Sheets waited for his wife, family and friends to arrive before he went to it.

As Sheets waited in his stand for everyone to arrive and to give the buck some time, he used his binoculars to scan the area where he had last seen the buck. Something caught his eye. Were those antlers or just tree limbs? He thought they were antlers.

After giving the buck plenty of time, Sheets quietly climbed down and snuck over to investigate. His hunch had been correct and he was soon looking at the largest set of antlers he had ever seen. He started pacing back and forth. “I’m not going to lie, I might have shed a tear or two. I’d been after this buck for three years now and it was surreal to see him lying there in front of me,” Sheets said.

Even though he had found the buck, he still didn’t walk up and lay his hands on the massive antlers. He just sat down and replayed the hunt over and over in his mind while he waited for his family to arrive. Once they did, the hunter finally walked up and grabbed the antlers. There was no ground shrinkage, they were just as massive as he had thought from the photos.

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Buckmasters Certified Scorer Toby Hughes taped out the massive rack at a heart stopping 214 ⅝ inches. The thick beams had a 5-by-5 typical frame, but there were five matching non-typical points on each side for a total of 20 scorable points. “Toby noted while he was scoring that the non-typical points were nearly symmetrical,” Sheets said. The rack had an astonishing 50 inches of mass measurements.

Sheets finished with this. “I don’t hunt for score, that’s just not what it is about for me. I just try to take a fully mature buck and, if it happens to have big antlers, that’s a bonus. I’m just lucky and blessed to have been in the right spot when he finally messed up and gave me a shot. I’m just thankful for the chance to hunt a buck like this and for a patient wife and for all the help from my brother.”

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