Date: Winter, 2005

Place: Somewhere in Ohio

Weapon: Ruger Red Hawk 44 Pistol

Distance: 80 yards

Hunter:

George Bolender (2003 Challenged Hunter of the Year)

From George's Field & Stream Article: “This one” is a deer anyone would want to talk about. He was in Ohio, hunting a few days of last year’s gun season. The day dawned windy. Does and fawns meandered by, then, at midmorning, a nice 8-pointer came through a ravine at 50 yards. To hunt with his Ruger Red Hawk .44 magnum, Bolender utilizes a homemade pistol mount crafted with a pair of car struts to handle recoil. To adjust for elevation, he bumps on and off an electric screwdriver whose gears drive the gun mount up and down. To fire the gun, Bolender sips on a mouth tube, which completes an electrical circuit that involves a solenoid attached to a car-trunk lifter that in turn pulls on a wire wrapped around the pistol trigger. Before he could get on target, the buck heard the whining screwdriver and took off.

“There’s not a thing I can do about that noise,” Bolender says with a shrug, “except keep hunting.”

Which he did. Seven hours later a “very big deer” started working his way up the ravine, disappeared, and then popped out of the brush. “What a beautiful sight!” Bolender exclaims. “Eighty yards, quartering away. I put the scope on his shoulder and sipped off a shot.” Nothing happened.

Bolender figured the solenoid was balking. “You know, they’re not really made for this kind of thing,” he says. “So I tried to free up the solenoid. I beat the crap out of it with my wrists. Two more shots, and nothing. That’s when the geese showed up. They were heaven-sent.” With light falling, a flock of geese flew low over the trees. Their honks gave Bolender the cover he needed to “make all the noise I wanted. I uncocked the gun, pounded on the back of the solenoid as hard as I could—which isn’t all that hard, of course—worked it back in the mount with my wrists, got the scope back on the deer, and sipped on the straw. All I saw then was muzzle flash. I heard him crash into the thicket. I laid my head back in the chair and almost began hyperventilating. I still remember my big puffy breaths making clouds in the cold air.” The buck sported 14 points, with double brow tines, 5-inch antler bases, “and kicker points all over the place.”