LOGAN, W.Va. — When Corey Greene and a friend managed to procure a new piece of hunting property in Logan County two years ago, they had no idea of the quest they were about to embark on. Soon after the first scouting trips onto the remote land near Man, W.Va. they got pictures of a serious buck. However, it would be two years before they ever had a chance to take him.
“We started getting pictures of this deer, but we never could get up with this thing. He whipped both of us. I’d go to my stand and he’d show up at my friend’s. He’d go to his stand and the buck would show up at mine,” he said.
During the 2023 season, they had one brief sighting of the buck in the flesh, but never got a shot. Corey feared the big bruiser might have been killed or relocated when he disappeared from their cameras. But, he only left for the summer. By the early fall he had returned to the area and Corey and his buddy now had it bad for him.
However, the pictures they were getting were not painting the true picture of this buck’s life.
“They were in the early morning hours first thing in the morning at daylight or eight or nine o’clock. He was in a bowl and he was bedding at the top of the bowl. So there was no way to access this place without spooking him,” he said. “I think every time I was hunting he would watch me walk in and the same thing at my buddy’s stand.”
But in 2024 things changed.
“He started showing up around midday, but in two years I had only seen him twice,” he explained.
Armed with the knowledge of the deer’s new travel pattern, Corey decided to delay his arrival at the stand. Instead of walking in at the earliest part of the day, he would straggle in around 11 a.m. He theorized the buck was running a circuit and not at his observation post at the top of the bowl during that time of day. It turned out Corey’s instincts were correct.
“I set up on an intersection of a couple of logging roads and I was watching two or three does. He started coming down the path and I saw him. I thought, ‘Oh gosh, here he is…'” said Corey.
But this would not be his day. The buck was more interested in the does and never presented Corey with a shot. The does fed their way around the hill and pulled the big buck along with them. However, he never winded Corey so he had no idea he was being watched. The encounter also proved Corey’s theory of a late arrival as key. A day later the situation was largely the same, but there were no does and the big buck still was still unaware of Corey’s presence.
“He just came straight in and didn’t stop. There was a little four point with him, but he came in and gave me a good shot. I rushed it a little bit because of that four-point. He was starting to get a little antsy,” he explained.
His arrow also nicked a limb which Corey didn’t initially see, but despite those potential pitfalls, the arrow found its mark and the big buck ran a few yards and stopped. Through his binoculars, a rather panicked Corey could tell he had a good hit and the buck was bleeding profusely.
“I saw him lay down and I thought he would just lay down and die. No, not this deer. He got up and ran another 200 to 250 yards UP the hill. He laid down in a little log pile on a logging road and that’s where he finally died. You could probably hear me celebrating all the way in Charleston when I found him,” Corey laughed.