DELBARTON, W.Va. — Hunter Ooten of Delbarton, West Virginia isn’t exactly a modern day bowhunter. Although his compound bow is a modern tool, his methods are old school. He likes it that way.
“I don’t have any trail cameras, no tree stand, no blind. I just like hunting on the ground. I find it to be a little more fun to move around and find a good spot. That’s just the way I’ve always done it,” he explained in a recent conversation for West Virginia Outdoors.
Ooten hunts the steep, rugged hills of Mingo County with his dad. As much as he enjoys hunting, he admitted it’s getting to be in the woods with his dad that is the real draw.
“I like going with Dad and it gives me something to do with him. We rabbit hunt together a lot. When we’re deer hunting, he likes to rattle and carry on too,” laughed Ooten.
His dad Roger Ooten should get an assist for the massive buck Hunter killed during the peak of rutting activity in 2025. Since he doesn’t have trail cameras or feeders, Hunter uses scouting as the one technique of knowing where to be. On this day, he and his dad felt confident they has scoped out the right spot.
“I went to a place where I knew there was deer. There were a lot of does and during the rut where there are does, the bucks will be there too. I also had found some monster rubs there and I knew I needed to go back there the next day,” he explained. “They were fresh and that’s how I knew he had been in there recently. I’ve seen rubs before, but I had never seen anything that ferocious. That really got me excited.”
As Hunter and Roger ascended the ridge to get to the rubs, it was Roger who insisted they needed to keep climbing.
“He kept saying, let’s go up one more flat, one more flat, one more flat,” said Hunter. “All of a sudden I heard a little grunt behind us and next thing you know he (the buck)was slowly coming up at us flat by flat.”
Hunter explained he and his dad had scent trailers attached to their boots and the buck had evidently crossed their path and keyed in on the smell. He was coming straight toward them. Once they were set up and ready, Roger fired up his antler rattles and the buck came in with a vengeance.
“He came a lot quicker when he heard that sound and he got to about 35 yards on the bench below me and lined up for a pretty good shot,” said Hunter.
Recovery was the next order of business and it wasn’t a slam dunk.
“He took off and it started to rain and I thought man, we’ve got to get on this blood. I found where he bedded down twice, but the rain kept washing away the blood. I finally pulled out and left and came back the next day to about where I thought he had died. My dad and uncle found him a little further down the hollow,” he said.
Although it’s a record book buck, for Hunter, it’s a record book hunt because it’s one more memory shared with dear ole Dad.