The Kontras and Van Lith Bucks, Two Record Deer That Changed Bowhunting

There’s a sample rising on this planet of trophy whitetail searching. It’s how two of the best bucks of all time had been taken final season, and it’s how the world file could also be shattered this fall.

I’m no playing man, however I’d guess the title card to my four-wheel-drive (if I had one) that the all-time world whitetail file goes to be damaged this fall. And I guess I can predict the place the buck goes to return from and who’s going to take it. No, I’m not psychic. Nor do I’ve entry to any inside data. However the statistics hold mounting 12 months after 12 months, making apparent conclusions for an sincere, pondering man inescapable.

Take into account the straightforward incontrovertible fact that, for instance, the Midwest far outranks the remainder of the nation for coughing up record-book bucks. However don’t cease there. Take a look at latest traits: State information for typical bow-killed deer fell simply final fall in Minnesota (Minnesota’s fell the earlier 12 months as effectively), in Ohio and in Michigan. Not coincidentally, final 12 months’s new No. 2 and No. 3 (tie) typical Pope and Younger Membership bucks got here from the Midwest — Ohio and Minnesota, respectively.

So the place is the brand new typical world file going to return from this fall? Minnesota most likely, Ohio perhaps and fairly presumably Kansas or Iowa. That’s a protected guess, particularly when you think about final winter’s file gentle climate throughout the Midwest. And after you learn the next tales behind two of the most important bucks taken within the nation final 12 months, you’ll see who’s going to do it. All of the arrows appear to be pointing in the identical route — a bowhunter goes to be the Chosen One.

From these two accounts, you’ll additionally discover a particular sample that’s as informative as it’s attention-grabbing: Each bucks had been taken by skilled bowhunters searching near dwelling, each animals had been noticed all through a three-year interval and each hunters had been in a position to establish a hotspot the place a monster buck wasn’t alleged to be — a core space, inside spitting distances of roads and homes and other people and canine.

The Invoice Kontras Buck

Invoice Kontras of Springfield, Ohio, like most bowhunters, experiences some pleasure when he erects a brand new stand. One author likened the emotion to the sentiments of youngsters hanging handmade ornaments on a family-felled Christmas tree; the sentiments are the fruits of months of expectation, and they’re the beginnings of much more intense anticipation, as the youngsters marvel concerning the higher issues but to return.

Kontras had loved these feelings many occasions throughout his six years of bowhunting, however by no means had the sentiments been as sturdy as they had been final November 13. Issues had been trying good for the central Ohio bowhunter. The realm round his chosen tree contained loads of contemporary signal — droppings, rubs, beds and so forth. However none was as contemporary because the signal that stood in entrance of him.

Kontras was midway up his chosen tree, trimming limbs and screwing in steps, when he was interrupted. One minute, the stubble subject in entrance of his stand had been empty, after which abruptly, like an apparition, a whitetail buck had appeared.

Like a hiding fox squirrel, Kontras flattened himself in opposition to the trunk of the pine, shifting solely his head sufficient to peek glances on the grazing whitetail. Every part concerning the deer appeared oversize, together with the thick, bullish physique that met a neck that appeared a minimum of 24 inches round at its smallest.

The deer’s neck was swollen each from the rut and from having to help the monstrous rack. From his perch 40 yards away, Kontras may inform that this was the buck he had watched develop for 4 years. There was no mistaking the silver-dollar-thick major beams, every stretching near 30 inches from base to tip. The buck’s rack was tall, some factors greater than 13 inches in size, and it was practically two toes throughout at its widest.

The 12-pointer that Kontras watched for 45 minutes as he clung to his tree would finally be acknowledged as one of many biggest whitetails ever. However the story of what’s going to eternally be generally known as “the Kontras Buck” entails greater than only a deer with a unprecedented rack. It’s a trilogy wherein the tales of the hunt and the hunter rival the greatness of the story of the hunted.

Six months earlier, Invoice Kontras was a really glad man. A quiet man with easy tastes for all times, Kontras was using the crest from the earlier bow season, wherein he had taken an 11-point whitetail. He had been just a little upset that it had barely missed making the Pope and Younger listings, however extra necessary to him was the sensation of satisfaction he felt inside.

“I obtained, and nonetheless get, a way of accomplishment from the buck I obtained in 1985,” mentioned Kontras. “It was the primary time that I had actually felt like I had earned one. I spent 9 months, generally in sub-zero climate, figuring his patterns earlier than I attempted to hunt him.”

Not like some sportsmen who boast of utilizing fashionable, sophisticated tools to enhance their taking pictures, Kontras thinks extra of his abilities as a hunter than a shooter. He takes nice satisfaction in the truth that he made the mere nine-yard shot with a easy, sightless recurve.

Then, in late Could 1986, Kontras, whose tall, athletic construct discloses a lifelong dedication to good well being, seen a swelling on the left aspect of his again that was numb to the contact. Assessments had been run, and the prognosis was one of the vital feared phrases recognized to man — most cancers.

It was a good-news/bad-news proposition. Medical doctors felt that Kontras’ life might be saved, however they made no guarantees about his left arm. Even when the limb might be spared, its future usefulness was uncertain. As with most sufferers. Kontras was each scared and confused going into surgical procedure.

“I attempted not to consider bowhunting, nevertheless it was inconceivable,” he mentioned. “I really like my spouse and children dearly, however being within the woods is second solely to them.”

The very first thing Kontras remembers after his surgical procedure is awakening and seeing his left arm nonetheless intact. Even in his groggy, semiconscious situation, he vowed that he would bowhunt the next fall, regardless of the lengthy odds and the ache that he knew would come.

Three weeks after surgical procedure, Kontras tried however didn’t raise his younger daughter’s tiny goal bow. After per week of attempting, he not solely raised the bow, however he managed to tug the string of the 12-pound-pull bow three inches again.

The ache was nice from the place the medical doctors had been compelled to take away a big part of muscle. Nonetheless, Kontras stored on the sluggish and painful course of.

The weak bows he practiced with and his ideas of bowhunting had been each his bodily and psychological remedy, pulling him out of melancholy and rebuilding his weakened physique. It was a step-by-step strengthening course of, as Kontras moved from goal bows to light-weight searching recurves.

As soon as, he thought-about regressing again to the compound bow he’d given up in 1984. “I attempted a compound as a result of it was a lot simpler to carry. however I simply couldn’t get myself to hunt with it,” Kontras mentioned, virtually apologetically. “Inside an hour, I used to be getting good teams at 20 yards, and that’s simply too simple. I like a problem: as soon as one thing will get simple, I wish to make it arduous once more.”

Kontras finally peaked with a 55- pound recurve. By early September, he may shoot three arrows from the bow earlier than fatigue and discomfort compelled him to stop. Slightly later, he labored his approach as much as volleys of 10.

Most bowhunters measure their scouting time in weeks and even months, however due to his sickness, common job and household commitments, Kontras’ scouting time consisted of some hours. Fortunately, he may depend on data he’d gained through the previous a number of seasons.

“I knew of 1 good buck that I had been watching since 1983,” he defined. “I had seen him yearly in the identical space, doing the identical issues, and I knew he’d most likely nonetheless be utilizing the identical bedding space. I’m virtually constructive that I may have taken him in 1985, however I feel the 11-point that I obtained was greater than him at the moment.”

Kontras checked the buck’s territory, and he discovered every part — the rubs, scrapes, beds and different signal — because it had been the years earlier than. The one variations had been the heights and depths of the scars the buck left in wrist-thick saplings, and this indicated that the whitetail had grown to trophy proportions.

Kontras’ subsequent journey into the realm was his interrupted stand-building expedition through the bow season. The massive white tail’s look halted the hunter’s development makes an attempt for the remainder of the waning day.

Mid-afternoon that following day, Kontras was again within the evergreen working arduous to erect his stand. What had been a relaxed 45-minute job the 12 months earlier than was now 2 1/2 hours of arduous labor for the principally one-armed Kontras. The strains of climbing the tree and putting in the platform had soaked him with perspiration.

Now, he stood 18 toes above the bottom, shivering in below-freezing temperatures and a stiff winter wind. Kontras’ muscular tissues tightened with every passing minute, and he flexed his bow constantly to maintain his physique from locking up. For added heat, he often appeared to his left at a contemporary scrape that the massive whitetail had etched into the bottom someday through the night time.

Most hunts for trophy whitetails are measured in weeks or generally even seasons. This time, it was a matter of minutes. Inside an hour, two does streaked from the duvet at Kontras’ left. Each had been skittish and checking their backtrail. Kontras knew the buck was on his approach.

For half-hour, the hunter watched the whitetails play a cat-and-mouse recreation because the buck tried to remain near the unromantic does. 3 times, the massive whitetail was inside 25 yards of Kontras, and every time, he handed up the shot, ready for a more in-depth, higher-percentage alternative.

After what appeared like an eternity, the does caught wind of the mock scrape that Kontras had positioned 16 yards from his stand. The buck adopted, and Kontras took his shot.

However moderately than the satisfying sound of arrow assembly deer, Kontras heard a loud, bothersome clank. A coronary heart that had seconds earlier than been racing with adrenalin now slowed in disappointment.

“It sounded an identical to the noise made when an arrow strikes a rock,” Kontras mentioned. “I used to be so constructive that I had missed that I solely stayed in my stand one other 25 minutes moderately than the standard hour I wait after I take a shot.”

Kontras was shocked on the problem he had discovering his arrow on the practically naked floor. He found why when he noticed a number of small drops or blood. The path of dots gave out inside 20 yards. He went for what he thought-about his solely hope.

Kontras credit his buddy Dave Charles with instructing him 95 % of what he is aware of about whitetails. He additionally sincerely feels that Charles is without doubt one of the finest all-around woodsmen within the nation, and Charles’ abilities embrace the power to bloodtrail.

Late that night time, after Charles completed his second-shift job, he, Kontras and one other buddy, Pete Willis, had been again on the subject.

Utilizing two Coleman lanterns, they discovered the place the buck had been standing when Kontras had taken his shot. “Let’s search for hair first,” mentioned Charles. Kontras watched with amazement when after a number of minutes of scrutinizing the bottom, Charles lifted a couple of darkish hairs, examined them after which mentioned, “You hit him excessive, Invoice, however I feel we’ll discover him.”

When the scant blood path disappeared, Charles started the meticulous hands-and-knees job of track-trailing the buck. The small group continued at a snail’s tempo, the anxiousness constructing inside Kontras with every stuttered step.

Then, 150 yards from the place that they had began, Kontras lifted his strained eyes from the bottom and peered into the night time. There, on the very fringe of the place the lantern’s white mild disappeared into the darkish, Kontras noticed an antler tip.

Kneeling beside the fallen buck, Charles, an avid trophy bowhunter, ran his fingers over the large rack. “My God, Invoice, what have you ever completed?” he requested.

They discovered, following the necessary 60-day antler drying interval required earlier than formally measuring Boone and Crockett and Pope and Younger trophy candidates. Kontras’ buck measured in at 201 1/8 factors, smashing the earlier Ohio gun and bow information. It’s the largest bow-killed whitetail to be taken in additional than twenty years, and it’s the second-largest arrow-felled whitetail of all-time!

But, the rack of the whitetail is deceiving. Most individuals underestimate its rating once they first see it: Kontras himself guessed the rack to be within the 160-point vary as he watched the buck graze the day previous to taking him.

The reason being the kind and form of the rack. The rack hides its personal greatness. The lengthy major beams curve to inside six inches of touching, making the rack appear like a tall, worn ivory-colored, crown.

There’s not one photographic angle that does the buck justice. An individual has to spend a number of minutes trying on the antlers to understand the immenseness of the headgear.

Most sportsmen marvel how any whitetail bucks, not to mention a brute akin to Kontras’, may have been so simply patterned. Kontras believes the case of the patterning was just because the buck had seldom, if ever, been spooked by a person.

Thc a part of central Ohio the place Kontras lives and hunts is, as a complete, closely hunted and densely populated. So, how did he discover a pristine space that harbored an undisturbed trophy?

“I attempt to search for areas that no different hunter would take into consideration searching,” Kontras mentioned. “I prefer to hunt areas which might be so small and apparent that each one different hunters cross them by.”

Earlier this 12 months, Kontras took me to the spot the place he arrowed his trophy. After we stepped from the truck, he requested. “What would you consider searching this property?” A muffled snicker was my reply.

The realm appeared like a golf course, because it was made up principally of carefully cropped grass. farm ponds and some exaggerated roughs. “I do know it doesn’t appear like a lot,” he mentioned. “however attempt to focus in on small areas as a substitute of the entire thing.”

My eyes slowly moved throughout the land, they usually finally settled on a small, three to five-acre part of swamp. From a deer’s standpoint, it was excellent. It sat low, and it was surrounded on two sides by open pasture land and on a 3rd aspect by a pond. There have been two simple escape routes for a whitetail. One, which was a slender ribbon of saplings and grass, led to the grainfield the place Kontras had been ready.

Nevertheless it was the fourth aspect of the oasis that was essentially the most attention-grabbing. It was a effectively traveled nation street. “This buck principally lived an undisturbed life in that tiny swamp,” Kontras defined, “although loads of hunters drove by inside 50 yards.”

Previous to final 12 months, to ensure his deer of selection remained undisturbed, Kontras, like most good trophy hunters, did most of his scouting from the top of 1 deer season till a month earlier than the following. He then stayed utterly out of the realm till the rut, when the actual buck he was after was essentially the most constant, and he solely hunted when the entire climate and wind situations had been in his favor.

The Curt Van Lith Buck

The similarities between the Kontras Buck and the whitetail that can doubtless be judged the No. 3 Pope and Younger head of all time are placing. Curt Van Lith, a 30-year-old Minnesota freeway development employee, has taken 11 deer with a bow. His newest one, which scored 197 6/8 Pope and Younger factors, is the most important typical bow-killed whitetail to have come out of his dwelling state. He shot it early within the season (September 27, 1986), effectively earlier than the rut, when huge bucks aren’t alleged to be susceptible. It was no fluke. Van Lith hunted inside a couple of miles of his dwelling in suburban/agricultural southern Minnesota, and he knew each sq. foot of the house vary of a close-by deer herd. He had additionally sighted the massive trophy three years earlier than, proper after he had downed a fats doe. The massive buck had trotted by Van Lith’s stand solely 12 yards away because the hunter was climbing down.

“I couldn’t imagine that rack,” he mentioned. “It was just like the drawing of an over-imaginative outside artist — really too thick and too heavy. I knew proper then that I used to be going to dedicate myself to him.”

However throughout the next two years, Van Lith noticed solely gigantic tracks and adrenaline-inspiring antler rubs that had been left behind by the buck of his desires.

“Each fall, the identical sample repeated itself,” he mentioned. “The buck would use a path bordering a woodlot that was adjoining to a cornfield my father-in-law had planted. And 50 or 60 timber can be shredded up within the woodlot, all the time in the identical common space. None can be lower than 4 inches in diameter, and the most important can be eight inches round. I used to shiver after I considered that huge rack and neck working these timber over.”

Van Lith then got down to do what any logical hunter would do. He monitored the identical path, hoping for a repeat efficiency ought to the buck both head for its bedding space or make the rounds to take a look at one of many many scrapes scattered all through the woodlot. And for good measure, Van Lith had backup stands alongside a close-by river backside — a logical selection for a big-buck hide-out.

The realm Van Lith hunts is Midwest meat-and-potatoes farm-country habitat. Image 4 rural properties scattered alongside a mile stretch of township street. Between them arc small pockets of woods and brushy drainages with alternating corn and soybean fields. The place may a buck maintain out, moreover the woodlots and drainages?

In the summertime and fall of ’85, the massive clue got here Van Lith’s approach, however he neglected it. The buck was sighted close to the 18-acre corn patch his father-in-law labored.

“It obtained to the purpose that I questioned if the buck was a ghost,” Van Lith recalled. “He’d go away clues of his comings and goings, however precisely the place he got here from or precisely the place he was heading through the day remained a thriller. Lastly, I believed, ‘What the heck, why not snoop round the place the buck shouldn’t be?’ I vowed that the 1986 season was going to be completely different.”

So, after two irritating years of going over each element with a psychological Geiger counter and arising empty-handed, Van Lith realized he needed to begin throughout from scratch. Reluctantly, considerably sheepishly, Van Lith wandered alongside the sting of the corn patch that August. Certain sufficient, he noticed solely small deer tracks. However as he moved in a couple of rows, he knew he had stumbled onto the lacking piece of the puzzle.

“There have been huge tracks throughout, and the realm was actually stampeded,” he mentioned. “This wasn’t simply the buck’s bed room, nevertheless it was his front room and doubtless his kitchen. He needed to have been spending most of his daylight in there, and I had been avoiding it just like the plague. I felt so silly.”

Shortly, Van Lith obtained out of the corn patch and started plotting his technique. He had a full month earlier than the 1986 bow season, so there was loads of time to set one thing up and go away it alone. As he surveyed the structure of the land, it quickly turned evident that the one place to intercept the buck was from an overgrown fenceline that bordered the cornfield on its east aspect. A lone, forked elm tree — overlooking a deer path 10 yards away — beckoned for Van Lith to put a conveyable tree stand in it. He put one up, 18 toes above the bottom on the skin limb, after which he left the realm alone till the season opener.

On opening day of the bow season, Van Lith needed to work. On the next Sunday, he hunted the treeline, and all he noticed had been a few canine frolicking in close by fields. He felt bizarre about all of it, however he determined to stay to his recreation plan. Later that week, it rained, and since this shut down his street development job, Van Lith was ready put in two extra days on the treeline. Once more, no deer had been sighted, a lot much less the massive buck.

The next week introduced extra rain and extra break day to hunt. As an alternative of searching the treeline, although, Van Lith took a stand within the woodlot. Once more. he noticed nothing. The weekend held promise of clear climate. and one other choice needed to be made.

“I nonetheless felt loopy,” Van Lith mirrored, “however I simply had a sense that point was on my aspect.”

His hunch paid off. The next Saturday, at about 6:15 p.m., he heard some noise coming from the corn patch. A cat chasing a mouse? After learning each corn tassel rigorously, he remembered trying throughout the sector at his neighbor’s home. Then, he turned towards his father-in-law’s place, which was within the different route. Simply then, one other noise from the corn patch interrupted Van Lith’s second ideas. A mourning dove flew out of the corn and over his head. A fox mousing round?

A 3rd noise from the cornfield, along with cornstalks shifting and chafing in opposition to each other, lastly obtained the hunter’s full consideration. A deer? Earlier than lengthy, large antler ideas protruding above the cornstalks despatched surges of adrenaline via Van Lith’s veins, and he started to shake violently. Because the buck stepped out of the corn, it turned and started feeding into the wind alongside a slender grassy carpet that lay between the treeline and the cornfield. The nearer the buck obtained, the larger the rack appeared to develop. Lastly, Van Lith talked himself out of the shakes and settled down. His buck was now standing broadside, 30 yards away, Van Lith held off. In a couple of moments, the buck can be 10 or 15 yards from the stand, so why threat it, he requested himself?

Abruptly, completely with out warning, the massive buck stretched his large neck out and appeared straight up at Van Lith.

“I froze,” Van Lith recalled. “I used to be terrified. Right here, I had him proper the place I needed him, and hastily he’s me like he knew I used to be there. It was the worst sinking feeling possible.”

Slowly, the buck did an about-face and headed down the treeline, trying again solely as soon as earlier than disappearing. Van Lith mentally kicked himself for not taking the 30-yard shot. How may he have been so overconfident?

However future dominated on behalf of Van Lith in any case. For some purpose. the buck crossed the treeline and reversed his route. He headed proper again towards Van Lith on the opposite aspect of the treeline, and he gave the bowhunter a second probability, simply when it had appeared that each one hope had vanished. After all, Van Lith was prepared. Nevertheless it was going to be an extended shot — longer than the one he had simply handed up. This time, his thoughts was made up. and his four-bladed Savora broadhead was pointed via a gap within the treeline because the buck squeezed by. On the arrow’s influence, the buck hunched and steered useless for the woods.

With the assistance of a number of members of the family, a late night chase scene ended at midnight in a stalemate. The next morning, Van Lith managed to recuperate the massive deer. nevertheless it took the focus of a fight soldier as a result of the buck’s path was misplaced many occasions. The deer had doubled again a number of occasions, had swam via the center of a pond, and had damaged via a wire-fenced corral earlier than lastly succumbing.

Simply how spectacular is Van Lith’s buck? The heavy-beamed rack made the deer’s 264-pound (dressed) physique look small. Veteran Pope and Younger in addition to Boone and Crockett scorer Dave Boland instructed me that this can be a very uncommon rack, one very near world-record proportions.

“Its gross rating was 218,” Boland mentioned. “Nevertheless it solely had 1 1/2 factors deducted for non-typical factors. That meant about 18 factors had been misplaced resulting from miss-matched beams. So, if two tines had been switched round, say the third on the left with the third on the proper, you’d be trying on the new world file.”

This story, “A Story of Two Bucks,” appeared within the July 1987 concern of Out of doors Life. Though Kontras’ buck will not be entered in Boone and Crockett or Pope and Younger File books, it’s nonetheless one of the biggest bucks ever taken in Ohio. the Van Lith buck continues to be listed as one of many prime 10 typical bow-killed bucks of all time within the P&Y information.