Quadriplegic Alberta Bowhunter Arrows Monster Buck From Wheelchair

When he woke up in a hospital bed after a terrible vehicle accident back in 2020, Colten Martyn heard the news that no outdoorsman wants to imagine. He had suffered severe trauma to his spine at the C5 and C6 vertebrae and was now a quadriplegic with limited use of his arms and hands and no use of his legs.

“Honestly, the very first thing that went through my mind was, how am I going to keep bowhunting?” Martyn said. A passionate outdoorsman and hunter, he knew he was going to have an uphill battle to keep doing what he loved. Martyn would end up spending six months in a hospital bed, most of it with a halo attached to his head to limit movement.

Even though he was faced with extreme challenge, Martyn knew he wanted to keep bowhunting. Image by Colten Martyn

As his release date from the hospital neared, Martyn began working with a physical therapist in earnest. One day, his therapist asked him a question: “What’s the one thing you want to be able to do when you leave the hospital? Your main goal?”

Martyn didn’t even have to think about it. “I want to be able to shoot my bow,” he said. The therapist was a little taken aback and even chuckled a bit. “That’s it? That’s all you want to be able to do?”

Martyn looked at her and answered. “If I can shoot my bow, I can do anything.” They immediately began to work toward his goal. A toy bow was procured and Martyn spent time each day drawing and aiming it from his wheelchair.

Part of his physical therapy was shooting a toy boy in preparation for moving back to his hunting bow. Image by Colten Martyn

When he was finally released in April of 2021, Martyn and his dad began to fashion plans for a bow holder for his wheelchair. One day, his dad disappeared into the garage and came out holding an old camera tripod. With a little tinkering, they made it into a serviceable bow holder.

Martyn’s first setup featured an old camera tripod as a bow holder. Image by Colten Martyn

Next, Martyn outfitted his bow with a Draw-Loc, a device that holds a vertical bow at full draw, allowing him to aim and shoot it from his wheelchair. Four months later, Martyn would put his tag on a nice buck.

Just months after leaving the hospital, Martyn tagged a nice buck with his bow. Image by Colten Martyn

Once he had proven to himself that he could still get it done, Martyn and crew set out to make his rig as effective as it could be. His cousin owns Lone Pine Outfitting and specializes in cougar hunts with hounds. He raffled off a hunt to raise money to get Martyn a Trackchair to increase his mobility. The winner of the raffle requested that Martyn be a part of the hunt, and his new chair allowed him to follow the hounds all the way to the base of the tree.

Martyn and his dad continued to work on the bow holder. They switched from the old tripod to a Bog Treepod. A good friend designed and 3D printed a bracket that mounted to his bow’s stabilizer. The new setup gave Martyn even more confidence.

Last year, Martyn set his sights on a trophy bull elk. The hunt went as planned and he soon put his tag on a giant 6x6, making him one of the few quadriplegic hunters to take a bull elk with archery equipment. He has also added a few more nice bucks to his tally over the past three years.

Colten Martyn was able to put his tag on this big 6x6 bull elk last season. Image by Colten Martyn

Last fall, Martyn and his girlfriend, Jessica, put out trail cameras on the property he hunts. An early snow kept them from getting back in to retrieve the cameras after season, but Martyn kept track of the photos of the deer that passed the camera during the rest of the year.

“This is a heavily hunted area. The deer see a lot of pressure. Everyone has the thought that ‘If I don’t shoot this 120-inch deer in front of me, someone else will,’ and that’s about as big as any buck gets around here,” Martyn said.

That’s why a single blurry photo in August immediately drew his attention. It was a buck bigger than any he’d ever seen in the area. “I immediately decided that I would blanket the area with cams this summer and fall in hopes of seeing him again,” he said.

And see him he did, almost too much. The buck was on every camera, but always at random times. There seemed to be no pattern and no way to set up on him. Eventually, with even more cameras, Martyn and Jessica were able to dial in on the buck’s routine. “He was bedding in a small clump of brush directly behind a house. He’d leave it and walk straight away and into the nearby timber. Funny thing is, the people that live around that house are all hunters, they just never thought about a buck like that living in the brush practically in their back yard,” Martyn said.

Once he had the buck’s pattern nailed down, the next thing on the list was to get a blind set up. “One thing this has done is make me a more patient hunter. Before, I was always wanting to spot and stalk. I’d sit for a few minutes, then I would get the itch to get up and move. Now, I have to stay in one place,” Martyn said.

With the heavy hunting pressure in the area, Martyn knew his best chance at the buck was going to be the early archery season. He called his buddy Brandon to help him set up a blind and, not ready to divulge the size of the deer he was after, told him he had a decent 4x4 on camera that he wanted to hunt. “Once we got to the spot and he looked around and saw cameras on just about every tree and fence post, Brandon looked at me with a little bit of question in his eyes. I just repeated that it was a decent 4x4, but I could see the wheels turning.”

Once the blind was in place, Martyn eagerly watched his trail cameras in the days leading up to the September opener. The buck stayed on a regular pattern, crossing in front of the blind just before dark on most nights.

Martyn and Jessica got into the blind early in the afternoon on opening day. The pair had boiled spruce needles and sprayed their clothes down to cover their scent. They sat patiently throughout the evening, but one small buck was the only action they had. As darkness fell, the two eased out of the blind and back to their truck. As they were getting ready to leave, Jessica looked at her phone and said, “You aren’t going to believe this.” Martyn looked over to see the big buck standing just yards in front of the blind in the darkness, proving that the deer was still on its pattern.

Day two of season was stormy and the wind was bad for their setup, so Martyn held off on hunting, but was back at it on day three. Again, the deer movement was nearly non-existent.

On the fourth day of season, the temperatures dropped, and Martyn knew there was a good chance the deer would move, so they headed to the blind early in the afternoon.

CHECK OUT OUR LATEST CAMO PATTERN: REALTREE APX

He was right. The big deer showed up right on cue. “I watched him come in and worried about what might go wrong. My mind was racing,” he said. “The big buck made it nearly into range, then stopped to test the air. Instead of continuing toward us, he turned and walked away, then turned back, made it almost to the same spot, then turned and walked away again.”

Martyn was devastated. As he sat and thought about what had just happened, how close he had been to the giant buck, he looked up, and the buck was coming back, having made a wide circle and now approaching from the other side.

“He was walking toward a fence post that we had already ranged. The first post was 40 yards. With my setup, I only have about a foot of swing with my bow and less horizontal movement than that. I needed him to walk through that small opening my bow was pointed toward,” he said.

The buck did just that, finally stopping at the extreme right-hand side of Martyn’s available aiming point. He settled the pin behind the buck’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger on his release.

At the impact, the buck mule kicked and bolted into the cover, jumping a fence in the process. Martyn replayed the shot over and over in his head. Had he made a good one? Was the buck down? After giving it some time, he and Jessica exited the blind in search of his arrow. When they found it, the blood looked good, and there was a good blood trail where the buck had exited.

Martyn called his cousin and told him he had just shot a pretty good deer.

Once his cousin took up the trail, he soon left Martyn’s sight in the darkness. The quietness of the night was soon pierced by his cousin’s excited yell of “Holy @#*&, what have you done?”

Martyn’s first thought upon seeing the buck was that the entire experience was unreal. “I was in shock. Never in my life did I think I would get a shot at a buck like this,” he said. He then called Brandon, who’d helped him set the blind. “I lied to you. It wasn’t a 4x4. I just shot a monster deer,” he told him. Brandon laughed and said he had wondered about all the trail cameras. He immediately headed over to help with the extraction.

Martyn’s buck came from a heavily hunted area and featured 13-inch G2s. Image by Colten Martyn

After getting the buck out, Martyn’s one desire for the photo session was to be on the ground with the buck. “I have a lift on my truck that is designed to transfer me from my regular chair to my Trackchair. I knew it would go all the way to the ground, and I really wanted to be on the ground with the buck for photos, so we strapped it on and lifted me out of the chair and to the ground. You can’t see him in the pictures, but my cousin in laying on the ground behind me and the deer to hold me up from the back.”

Don’t Miss**: THE 5 BIGGEST REASONS YOU DON’T SHOOT BIG BUCKS**

Martyn’s buck sported a massive velvet rack with 13” G2’s and 10” G3’s. The main beams stretched an impressive 23 ½ inches. Total score should finish out in the mid 170s. “To take a buck like this where I live, it’s a once in a lifetime thing. I am so thankful for Jessica, my mom and dad, my cousin Jason and family, and good friends like Brandon who help me to continue doing the things I love to do. I couldn’t do it without them.”

What’s next for Colten Martyn? He drew a mule deer tag this year and has his eye on a big one. Martyn finished with this: “I just want people to know that they can do anything they set their minds too. Don’t let your situation stop you from doing what you love. There’s always a way to do what you love, it just might take a little more engineering or a little more time and thought to put into it.”