Pennsylvania Game News - January 2021 - 11

stomach hurt, " he said.
He quickly found the trail the buck had
been on, but nothing else. No arrow. No
hair. No blood.
Filled with uncertainty, he backed out
until morning.
" That night, needless to say, was the
longest night of my life, " he said.
Cory talked to his dad that night and
told him how the buck ran off hard after
the shot - a detail that caused his dad to
insist the buck must have been hit.
" I figured Dad had to be right, " Cory
said. " He's the best hunter I know and I
always go with his advice, and that eased
my mind a little anyway.
" But there is always that doubt until
you can confirm something, " he said.
While Cory wasn't sure he'd hit the
buck, his familiarity with the landscape,
gained mostly through hunting sheds
there, wouldn't hurt his chances of recovering it. Both he and Ashlee pored over
maps of the area until she went to bed
around midnight.
Cory stayed up and kept thinking.
He'd seen where the buck had run
down over, near a rock outcrop where he
and Ashlee once stopped for a break while
shed hunting. The buck would have to go
on one side of the outcrop or the other.
At 3 a.m., Ashlee got up to find her
husband still awake, in the kitchen making
coffee, already having given up on getting
any sleep. Before returning to bed, she
told him to keep her informed of what's
going on, and that she had a dream the
buck was lying dead, right by those rocks.
The next few hours crept by until Matt
arrived at 6:30 a.m. to pick up Cory to look
for the buck. They met up with Cory's
brother Cody along the way and were at
the stand by 8 a.m.
JANUARY 2021	

No arrow was found at the site of the
shot - a hopeful sign that maybe it had
been carried away by the buck. Cody and
Matt quickly found blood within 10 yards,
then up ahead, more of it and heavier. As
they worked to unravel the trail, Cory
raced ahead toward the outcrop. He
didn't go far before finding a 3- by 3-inch
chunk of deer hide he hoped didn't signal
coyotes had gotten to the buck first. He
called the others to take a look, but both
agreed, the hide looked too old to have
come from his buck.
Cory forged ahead again, and rubbernecked skyward as he approached the rim
where he could start to see down over. His
eyes immediately locked onto something
out of place - a large white belly, and
those horns.
" I never felt anything like that before, "
he said of the all-encompassing emotion
that rushed in to overtake him. " You probably could have heard us from 100 miles
away when we got our hands on him. It
was just unreal, not just for me, but all
three of us. "
He texted his wife, " We got him. "
The buck was hit through the lungs,
half of the arrow still in its chest, buried up
to the nock. It had gone just 70 yards and
fell 10 feet from the rocks where Ashlee
dreamt it would be.
More than three weeks after shooting
the massive buck and rising to nearcelebrity status, almost overnight, as
photos of the two were sent by text and
email everywhere, Cory said the entirety
of his accomplishment was just beginning
to sink in.
Ed Waite, of Buckmasters, measured
the rack at a gross green score of 194-6/8
inches. The main beams, measured green
at more than 33 inches each, are among
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Pennsylvania Game News - January 2021

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