Bill Cochran

Recent columns

• Laurel Bed Lake being drained; no money to repair dam
• Kerr is king of Virginia's crappie fishing -- but it's no pushover
• More feathers fly at National Wild Turkey Federation
• Bill Cochran reflects on 39 years of Optimist Club fishing tournaments

• Column archive
• Bill's Mailbag
• Bill's Field Reports
• Trout stocking schedule

Tony Hodges was about to put down his bow and pick up his camera. Standing 15 yards broadside from him was a moister buck, the kind hunters see in their dreams. But Hodges, on a late October hunt last season, didn’t have a shot. There was too much brush to thread his arrow through.

A picture would at least partially salvage this special moment, but something told Hodges to hang onto his bow. It turned out to be the right choice.

At the 68th annual Virginia Big Game Trophy Show in Franklin Sunday, the 22-point buck Hodges killed was the highest scoring deer taken during the 2006-07 deer season. It measured 245 4/16 under Virginia’s system, outpacing deer taken by modern guns and muzzleloaders. It ranks second in the all-time state bow records behind a 16-point buck killed in Pulaski County the previous season by Brian Lytton of Radford. That deer scored 252 8/16.

On that never to be forgotten morning, Hodges, who lives in Patrick Springs, arrived at his hunting spot on a Henry County farm about 7 a.m., just as dawn was breaking. That is later than most hunters would choose, but Hodges, a 39-year-old printer, describes himself as being clumsy and having an aversion to stumbling through the woods in the dark.

He had scouted the area weeks earlier, choosing to place his climbing stand in a funnel of thick cover between a feeding and bedding area. There was a good supply of acorns about a half-mile away, and Hodges figured that’s where the bucks would feed nocturnally. Then, at first light, they would travel the funnel to their bedding area, a place so thick you’d have to step on a deer to see it. Maybe along the way they would pause to chase a doe.

“I hunt bedding-type areas,” he said. “That is something deer are forever going to use. Food sources, like acorns, change; bedding areas stay the same.”

Once Hodges found the spot, in late August or early September, he can’t remember for sure, he left it along and didn’t go back until Oct. 30, the day the big buck came along. Hodges let that much time elapse, thinking the rut would kick in.

“I probably had been there 20 minutes and I caught a little flick of movement to my right,” he said. “It was something gray, but it disappeared because it was kind of thick there. I didn’t know if it was a squirrel or a deer. It could be a deer, so I got my bow ready.”

Soon Hodges could hear a deer walking straight for him, but he didn’t know if it was a buck or doe. Then it stopped, perfectly broadside, no more than 15 yards distance.

“I could see the whole deer. It was a moister buck,” he said.

Tony Hodges whose 22-point Henry County buck was the top deer in the Virginia Big Game Trophy Show.

Did Hodges get nervous? Silly question. Never mind he has killed 20 deer with a bow and uses this challenging instrument exclusively to hunt all seasons.

“I don’t know the words to describe it. It was a very tense moment. But I did not have a shot at him because of the cover. I am looking at him and thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, what a buck!’”

That’s when Hodges briefly considering at least getting a shot with his camera.

“Most of the time when I come out of the woods with a deer, it is a picture,” he said. “I just like to take pictures.”

The stately buck suddenly changed his course. Hodges scanned ahead looking for an opening, and spotted one big enough to expose the animal’s entire body.

“I didn’t know whether he would go through the hole or not, but I just drew my bow, pointing it at the hole, watching with both eyes open -- hoping.”

The buck’s head suddenly popped up in the opening, then its body. It was about to disappear. Hodges made a grunt or bleat sound with his mouth in a desperate effort to stop the buck. The animal froze in its tracks. Hodges fired an arrow at what he thought to be a distance of 35 yards.

“I shot and it was like time stood still and all of a sudden the deer just collapsed right where he was standing.”

The true distance was 25 yards, so the arrow went high, hitting the deer’s spine.

With heart thumping and knees shaking, Hodges gazed on the massive buck and was overcome with a feeling of humility.

“I didn’t feel worthy of a deer like that, not because I had a reason not to be,” he said. “I don’t consider myself a great hunter, but it is a great deer.”

In reality, Hodges had done a bunch of things right: the scouting, the stand placement, the cat-and-mouse game with the big buck, the difficult shot.

The bow-killed buck has been entered in five major contests, winning them all in competition with sportsmen using all types of hunting gear. That includes the Dixie Classic in Raleigh, N.C. where more than 600 deer were entered.

See Bill Cochran’s Field Reports for additional information on the Big Game Show.