Bow hunter turns to gun for miracle shot

At first, Doug May wasn't sure that the deer he and his family spotted in a farm field near his house was one he could get.
"There was no way to approach the deer and to be in good range to get a responsible shot with my bow," he said. "Then my 10-year-old daughter Morgan told me to go outside and shoot the deer. I told her that I wasn't a gun hunter. She then told me, 'Maybe it's time that you should be,'" he chuckled.
May, 38, a bow hunter for the past 26 or so years, then grabbed his Ithaca 16-gauge, headed outside into the alfalfa field, and got the shot -- and the deer -- of a lifetime.
The animal
May, who lives in Lawrence Township in Stark County and is a firefighter for the city of Green, harvested the monster buck shown above on his property.
"This was a majestic animal that deserved to be harvested in the best possible way," May said of his trophy.
Going by the hunting regulations book is important to May. Taking cheap or unethical shots are as foreign to him as hunting out of season would be.
"I'm very passionate about hunting and wildlife but I am a lover of wildlife first," he said.
"We can see about 200 acres of land from our house," he added. "And the deer feed on all that prime hay. My kids love deer and I've never hunted that land."
That's why he hesitated to harvest the 17-point buck.
He had been getting ready to go bow hunting when the animal presented itself on acreage that May leases for hay to a local farmer.
Since May does not own a deer slug gun, he had to grab the nearest thing, and that was the Ithaca.
May said that he approached the deer in the field and got to within about 90-yards of the buck when the large deer put his head down and presented him with a shot.
"I definitely had a lot of luck," he said. "It was really divine intervention."
The score
He has had the animal's rack scored by both Boone & amp; Crockett and Buckmasters.
He said B & amp;C gave the rack a quick green score of 176 3/4 typical and 208 5/8 nontypical. He said that despite the typical looks of the rack, there were a number of abnormal points that reduced the animal's score and it will likely go into the books as a non-typical rack.
B & amp;C's official score won't come for about a month, after the rack has dried.
The Buckmasters' BTR score for the May rack was 196 7/8, sixth all-time for a shotgun-killed deer with a semi-irregular typical rack.
"Buckmasters said they would feature the animal in a future issue of RACK magazine," May said.
He added that what set this animal apart was its mass.
"It had 27- and 28-inch beams and a 15-inch G2, the second tine," he explained.