Three Bucks in Three States for Kentucky Hunter

Written by Mike Collins

Kentucky hunter TJ Schuler completed a deer harvest trifecta while hunting with Whitetail Heaven Outfitters this fall.  The Louisville native harvested three bucks, in three states in just seven days of hunting.

Schuler began hunting with Whitetail Heaven Outfitters after losing the farm he was hunting. His dad passed away a few years ago, and shortly after the landowner of the farm they hunted also passed away.

“The guides, the cooks, the staff, and the owners are great people,” Schuler said. “I met people here last year and we’re good friends now. If you need anything, Tevis (McCauley) is one of the easiest going owners, he’s a businessman, but he’s a family man too. Their hashtag is “Nobody does what we do.”

To Schuler, there isn’t a truer statement. The proof would soon follow.

Kentucky
Shelby County, Sept. 12th

Schuler decided to kick off the 2020 deer season at Whitetail Heaven Outfitters on their farm in Waddy, KY. Due to a back injury in highs school, Schuler isn’t able to hunt with compound bow, but he had his Ravin R20 crossbow ready to go. Guide George Krevatas suggested he hunt in the spot they call “The Field of Dreams.” The “Field of Dreams” is a big soybean field in the very back of the property. The stand is located near a natural pinch point. Trail cameras indicated that deer were active in the area.

It was hot afternoon, the second weekend of September it’s still pretty warm. Schuler wore shorts and a t-shirt while heading to the treestand. Once in the stand, he sat for about an hour to cool off before putting on camo pants and a long sleeve shirt.

Early in the evening a couple small bucks, a small 8-pointer and a little 6-pointer came out together to feed in the soybeans. After they moved off activity slowed down, Schuler jumped on his phone to pass the time.

“I’m a 21^st century hunter, I’m 27 years old and I play games on my phone when I’m not seeing deer, Schuler said. “It is the way it is, ADHD problems too. I was playing poker with my buddies; we have a poker group.

Movement caught his eye.

“I was playing poker and saw something to my right,” Schuler said. “I put my phone between my legs and I just sat there and watched.”

A tree just down the edge of the field was full of leaves and it leaned in such a way that Schuler couldn’t tell what was moving behind it. As he peered through small openings, he noticed antlers. He picked up his Ravin R20 crossbow and got ready.

The deer started to move out from behind the tree for Schuler to notice more characteristics on the rack. He knew right away it was a shooter buck. The buck was still in full velvet.

Schuler had to turn completely around in the stand to get in position for a shot. As he walked into the field, the buck was at 47 yards and quartering away from Schuler. When the deer’s body was fully out from behind the brush, Schuler put the crosshairs behind the buck’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger on his crossbow.

“He dropped immediately, so right away I thought, like with a gun, I may have spined him,” Schuler said. “I got another arrow and had to reach for the crank that was in my pack to get another shot ready. The crank fell to the bottom of the pack, I’m digging and pulling things out trying to find the crank.”

Schuler scrambled to get a second shot ready and was startled to see a deer running away when he looked up. After realizing it was a different deer he looked down and noticed his deer try to hop up. The deer moved behind the tree down the field edge and all got quiet.

“I didn’t hear anything, so you would think I would have if he had been running away in the woods,” Schuler said. “I called my guides Chad McCranie and Ty Ellis right away and told them that I had shot a deer. Then I called my best friend Chaz West, he’s the one that got me here at Whitetail Heaven.”

Schuler got down out of the stand and traced his line of trajectory to help find the arrow in the soybeans. He walked 47 yards and looked down to find his arrow. There was blood everywhere. The buck had rolled just off the side of the field and into the woods.

“I shot him at 6:58pm, it ended up being a perfect shot and he was right there,” Schuler said. “He was an 8-pointer that went 142 inches in full velvet. He was 18 to 19 inches wide. He was my biggest buck to date at that point.”

As he approached the buck, Schuler was overcome with excitement and emotion. He thought about his dad.

“Hold on I’m going to get a little emotional,” Schuler said. “I thought about my dad, he passed away, but he always used to joke on me because he had all these deer on the wall. I missed deer when I was younger because I insisted that I wanted to hunt by myself. I wear my dad’s hat every time I go hunting now. I thanked him and wished he were here, and I hoped he was proud of me. I’m blessed, I thanked the Lord.”

Indiana
Crawford County, October 3rd

Schuler was ready for another deer hunt and had time scheduled off work in early October. He text Tevis McCauley, owner of Whitetail Heaven Outfitters to get some advice.

“I text Tevin and told him that I trusted him the first time and that I was going to trust him again,” Schuler said. “I asked him if I should go to Ohio or Indiana.”

After a few days went by McCauley told Schuler to go to the farm in Indiana. Indiana’s archery season begins on the first of October no matter what day of the week it falls on. Schuler lives just 45 minutes from the Whitetail Heaven farm in Indiana.

Schuler decided he would hunt the evening of Oct.3 in Indiana. That morning he left home and stopped at the New Albany, IN Walmart to purchase his license and tags.

“I got to the stand around 2:30pm or 3:00pm.,” Schuler said. “The stand was in some hardwoods; it was an old stand. It had been there a while because the tree had grown around the straps. It was an old lock-on stand.”

The area was full of acorns. Schuler expected to see deer in an acorn paradise. The area was logged seven years ago, so the underbrush was thick in there too. The wait had begun.

“I hadn’t seen any deer in the early afternoon, so I started playing poker on my phone again,” Schuler said. “I got a text from my friend and he asked if I had seen anything. About that time, I heard something, so I put my phone in between my legs.”

Movement caught Schuler’s attention, so he grabbed his range finder out and he saw antlers.

“He was just standing there eating acorns, I could hear him crunching on them,” Schuler said. “Any hunter knows when deer are that close and you can hear the crunch, it gets you going.”

The buck poked his head out from behind some brush, his body was still behind the foliage. Just two more steps toward the logging road and Schuler would have a shot. The range finder put the deer at 12 yards.

“As I got ready for the shot, I put my foot on the footrest to help steady myself,” Schuler said. “You know how old stands are, when I put my foot on the rest, it popped, and the deer looked up. He didn’t look up like “oh shit,” it was like, “oh what was that.”

The buck glanced over in Schuler’s direction and it took a few steps onto the logging road. Schuler was ready.

“I had my crossbow ready when he stepped onto the logging road,” Schuler said. “I took the shot and it hit right behind the shoulder. The buck ran right down the old logging road. I knew I hit him, I saw the arrow go through and I saw blood coming out. He went 30 yards and piled up.”

“I text Tevis and I told him that he should go buy a lottery ticket because he was 2-for-2 on telling me where to go,” Schuler said.

Schuler got a touching response from McCauley. “I’ll do anything for anybody that take my boys out hunting.” The comment stemmed from a time that Schuler took McCauley’s middle son hunting.

“When he told me that he’d do anything for someone that takes his boys hunting it just made me think of my dad and how hard he had to work to provide for me,” Schuler said. “Tevis is providing for his boys, he has to work a lot because he runs several businesses. I was glad to be there to help take his son hunting.”

Schuler got down from his treestand and walked up to the deer. The buck was an 8-pointer that had a 20-inch spread and scored right at 140 inches.

“I was over the moon,” Schuler said. “I always text my Godparents, my aunt and my uncle. I text them every time, they don’t have kids, I’m like their kid. My aunt was close to my dad too, she told me that dad would be proud of me.”

Ohio
Brown County, October 5th

Schuler picked up the cape and rack from his Indiana buck on Oct. 4 and drove to his friend Chaz West’s house to show him the deer. West’s two-year old son enjoyed holding the rack and taking pictures. After chatting for a few minutes, West asked Schuler if he was ready to go to Ohio for a hunt.

Schuler just laughed.

“He knew I had Monday off,” Schuler said. “I was like, I’m not going to Ohio. I didn’t want to have to add all the driving back and forth on Monday and then have to go back to work on Tuesday.”

West looked at his DeerCast app to make his final pitch to Schuler.

“He said I needed to go up to Ohio because the DeerCast app said that pressure was good, temperatures would be good and that a front was coming in,” Schuler said. “He talked me into it.”

Since Schuler has a membership at Whitetail Heaven, he can call and ask if a spot would be open at one of the farms. He called Neil Kendall, the North Lodge Manager. Schuler set up a hunt for the evening of Oct. 5.

After arriving at the farm called Denver, Schuler purchased is Ohio hunting license and tags online. The stand he was going to is located at the top of a big hill. It was a rigorous walk, he recalled.

Schuler got in the stand around 3pm. He saw a bunch of turkeys and squirrels, and even witnessed a squirrel fall out of a tree.

Later that evening he had a doe come in, but she stayed in a thicket. Once the doe left, Schuler started to play poker on his phone again, he text West to tell him what he had been seeing.

As the sun fell below the hill, turkeys started to roost on the ridge behind him. Schuler looked to his left and saw a deer coming through and he saw a rack.

“I knew right away he was a shooter because they had sent me pictures of three shooters that had been coming in this spot regularly,” Schuler said. “This deer was one of them.”

The buck was walking along inside the same thicket as the doe was in. Schuler lost sight of him, but heard the deer making a scrape and rubbing on trees. It seemed like forever before the deer reappeared.

At first, it looked like the buck was going to go back the way he came in. The buck broke left and started heading right toward Schuler.

“I’m like, oh my goodness, this is going to happen,” Schuler recalled. “I’m shaking at that point and it’s getting real.”

Schuler waited several minutes; it didn’t seem like the deer would ever turn broadside. All the sudden the deer veered right and gave him the shot that he was hoping for. He aimed his crossbow and let the arrow fly.

“I pulled the shot a little bit, when he took off, I could see the arrow lodged just above his left shoulder,” Schuler said. “The opposite shoulder had stopped the arrow from a clean pass through. I saw blood coming off him, and I saw the arrow. I heard a crash but wasn’t sure if the deer was down so I called Tevis.

Schuler said that McCauley didn’t know that he was hunting in Ohio, so when he answered the phone call Schuler exclaimed, “I did it!”

McCauley replied, “You did what?”

Schuler told McCauley that he had killed a buck in Ohio and that he’d hit the trifecta. At first, McCauley thought Schuler was messing with him.

“I just heard him crash, you’re the first person I called,” Schuler told McCauley.

Schuler sat back in the stand to give his adrenaline time to settle down. He decided to give the buck some extra time, so he went back to the lodge for dinner. After dinner they all went back up to find the deer.

“I found first blood,” Schuler said. “A few yards later, it looked like a massacre. The deer hit up against a big oak tree that broke the arrow out of his side. This allowed the blood to escape the wound, he didn’t go far.”

It was a big 149 inch 9-pointer. His trifecta buck, and biggest buck to date.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Schuler said. “Emotions hit me again. I just couldn’t believe that I had killed three bucks, each over 140 inches in just seven hunting days. Right place right time.”

Schuler has made some incredible memories in the deer woods this season, but he’s also spent time reflecting on the special memories etched in his mind of hunting with his dad.

“I’m blessed to have been in the right place at the right time,” Schuler said. “Luck was on my side this year. It’s hard to explain until you lose the person that taught you everything as you grow up, then finally be able to do the stuff he was doing, but he’s not around anymore. It sucks, you wish he were there, but you know he’s watching you.”

There were times that Schuler didn’t get to spend with his dad because his dad was hard at work to provide for the family.

“I watched my dad work himself to death and provide for the family, and he didn’t get to do some of the things that he should have been able to enjoy,” Schuler said. “I learned that lesson from him, I am not going to work myself to death. My slogan is, pay your bills, work enough to not get fired and live your life because I don’t want any regrets.”

Along with his day job working for Ford in Louisville, Schuler is now a part-time guide with Whitetail Heaven Outfitters.

Schuler and his dad spoke of hunting with an outfitter prior to his dad’s passing. They shared a love of the outdoors, a love of deer hunting.

It’s fitting that Schuler ended up hunting with Whitetail Heaven Outfitters. Three bucks, three states and seven days hunting. His dad was with him in spirit during each trip to the woods.