"David's opening-day success is just one more feather in Ohio's cap," said Steven A. Gray, chief of the ODNR Division of Wildlife. "We are very proud of our reputation as a leader in deer management and of the trophy bucks Ohio has to offer."
"This is the third time in five years that a non-typical white-tailed deer, scoring more than 220 points in the national Boone and Crockett system, has been taken in Greene County," noted Gray. "That makes Greene County home to three of Ohio's top 25 non-typical white-tailed deer."
Ross said he didn't realize the history he made when he took the deer on the evening of October 4.
"At first, I thought the deer was a nice 10 or 12 pointer," said Ross. "I couldn't believe it turned out to be a non-typical 30-point buck!"
If the rack's initial score is verified after the drying period, the deer will be listed as the second-largest non-typical taken by a crossbow in Ohio and the thirteenth-largest white-tailed deer ever taken in Ohio overall.
The antlers were scored at 16 x 14, meaning they had 16 individual points on the right side and 14 on the left. The field-dressed deer weighed between 280 and 300 pounds. The famous 39-point Beatty Buck was taken in Greene County in the fall of 2000. With a rack score of 304 6/8, it stands as the world's largest non-typical white-tailed deer ever taken by a hunter. Ross has been hunting for eight years and hunting deer with a bow for five of those years.
"It's a very nice deer," said Ron Perrine Sr., an official scorer for both Boone and Crockett and the Buckeye Big Buck Club. "The green score was 232.2 and the Division of Wildlife experts determined the deer was at least 4 1/2 years old."