Ohio Crossbow Hunter Finally Spots 200-Class Target After 8 Sights in 6 Days

This fall, veteran bowhunter Mark Dunn and his wife Carrie began searching for family property in Champaign County, Ohio. Walking through the 80-acre property in September ahead of onion season, they identified an area that looked like a good travel corridor.

“We set up three trail cameras to see what was going on there and immediately got pictures of the giant deer,” Dunn said. Outdoor living. “I knew I had to get back out there soon and put some tree stands up.”

Dunn waited until heavy rains from Hurricane Helen passed through the area to provide some shelter.

“I figured rain would be a good time to put the stands up so I wouldn’t bother that buck,” says Dunn, who lives in Mechanicsburg. “I put stands in different places so I could hunt in different wind directions.”

Soon after, Dunn left to hunt elk in Wyoming. He marked the cow, but his thoughts were still occupied with something larger, atypical for the house.

“I kept thinking about that dollar in Ohio. I came back on Saturday, saw him from the stand on Monday and killed him six days later.”

Dunn says he’s seen the deer in person eight times. It was always in the evening, and each time the deer moved out of range. He eventually decided to try morning hunting instead. By the time the sixth day, October 20, arrived, the moon was bright and almost full. He was worried he might spook the deer as he crossed the field on his way to his stand in the moonlight.

“I walked up to my booth at 5:30 a.m., almost two hours before the light shoot,” Dunn recalls. “I wanted to be there long before dawn.”

Around 8 a.m., Dunn spotted a giant buck 140 yards away, emerging from a field. A deer walked across the lawn towards Mark. He thinks the deer was heading toward oak trees filled with acorns. The deer stayed on course and finally settled broadside toward Dunn’s stand at 27 yards. He raised his Raven R10 crossbow and pointed a double-edged 100-grain broadhead over his shoulder.

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“He ran as fast as he could across the field, got to the edge of the field, stopped, staggered and fell,” Dunn said. “I couldn’t see him on the ground because the grass was tall there. So I called Carrie and told her I made money. Then I waited there for 90 minutes because I didn’t want to risk jumping the deer if it was still alive.”

Dunn eventually returned to his truck and called a friend, who helped him dress and load the huge whitetail. They took the dressed deer back to Dunn’s house, where it weighed 235 pounds on a farmer’s scale. He later gave credit to Ohio Buckmasters scorer Toby Hughes, who gave him a BTR of 233 7/8.

“He had 21 points with 7-inch bases,” Dunn explains. “Each of the main beams is over 26 inches long and we think it was at least 6.5 years old.

He says it’s his biggest haul to date, surpassing the 190-inch whitetail that already hangs on his wall along with about 30 other bucks from Ohio. And, seeing the stand up close, he realized that they had seen the same dollar on the neighboring site last year.

“We had trail camera photos of (the same deer) and in 2023 he was a giant, about 160 inches tall. My son could have taken it last year, but he didn’t,” Dunn says. “And I’m glad he didn’t. Because the deer’s rack just exploded after a year.