Boyd Mathes is a farmer in Pella, Iowa. Boyd grows corn, soybeans, and big bucks on his property. Boyd has been a bowhunter since he was a child, and his love for archery has grown to the point that Mathes has an archery shop at his home. Since the closest archery center is many miles from Pella, Boyd’s friends started bringing their archery equipment to him for tune-ups, and over the years the archery shop developed into what is now known as Buck Hollow Sports.
Boyd is also very involved in wildlife management and hunting in general, but Mathes is also a good writer so we are going to let him tell the story. The following is the story that Boyd sent Muzzy to introduce himself to us.
The end of archery season in 2002 will forever be burned into my brain and to this day I can run a movie in my head and see it all as it happened. I knew there was a big buck in the neighborhood as I had captured him on my trail cams a couple of times. The neighbors around my farm were also very excited as they had seen him and really wanted a chance to harvest him for themselves. In fact, 3 of the neighbors all came into my archery shop and purchased new bows, wanting to have the very best equipment for the pursuit. One neighbor had taken a shot at him the previous fall only to fall short and end up with a handful of white belly hairs. The shed antlers were found in the spring of 2002 and then we knew then that he was big. Several tines were broken but it was clearly evident that he would be a “shooter.” I hunted hard and smart all season, passing many bucks that most would be glad to shoot, all for a chance at the big non-typical drop-tine. One day in mid November when cutting through a small finger of timber on the way to my favorite stand, I noticed a really nice fresh scrape and decided to hang a trail camera there. Inspection of the photos a week later showed lots of bucks on this scrape in broad daylight. The big boy wasn’t caught on film here but there were so many bucks on it taken during legal shooting hours that I just had to hang a stand there and try it. I hung an old ladder stand there and decided to let the area cool down for a while before I hunted it. A week later, December first rolled around and it was getting real close to Iowa’s shotgun opener, so I decided to hunt this ladder stand in a last ditch effort to harvest a nice whitetail. I was in the stand plenty early and watched over a dozen does pass by over 100 yards above me and head into the neighbors cut corn field. Just as the sun was setting, I happened to look to the west into the sunset and saw the silhouette of a nice buck coming over the ridge from the direction of one of my sanctuary areas (and the exact spot where one of his sheds was found). A quick glance through the binocs proved that this was the buck I was after! I anxiously watched him approach slowly toward me, afraid that he would hit the trail of all the does and follow them into the corn field. He cut their path and for some reason kept going, moving mostly parallel to me but slowly getting closer. I tried not to look at the horns and was surprisingly calm as he crossed the ditch I was on and moved into a clover field I had planted that spring and began to feed. He stopped about 40 yards out and fed for the longest time, right behind a big bushy tree. I quietly ranged everything I could in the area to make sure I would know the distances to everything he could possibly walk past. For what seemed like hours, he fed slowly towards me. I was afraid to grunt, wheeze, bleat, rattle or even to breathe as I was afraid anything could change his path. Finally, he stepped into a shooting lane directly behind my stand but between two rock piles previously ranged at 25 and 35 yards. I settled the 30 yard pin low behind the shoulder and squeezed off the shot. I can still see my “bad to the bone” Muzzy tipped, crested arrow fly in slow motion and disappear right where I was aiming. I had managed to get a perfect double-lung shot with a complete pass-thru. I knew he was finished when he ran off only a short way and stopped to look back, stumbled to the side and went down less than 75 yards from my stand. The adrenaline and excitement bundled up for so long, hit me hard and I was a total mess of nerves for quite a while. I tried to look at him with my binoculars but was shaking so bad I managed to snap them in half leaning them against the tree to steady myself! I waited until dark to climb down, not because I was waiting to trail him, but because I would have surely fallen with all my jitters had I tried it any earlier. I started to make a big circle around him to head to the truck first but couldn’t stand it and went over to inspect my trophy, a 19-point non-typical with a very nice drop tine. Several quick cell phone calls had my wife, one of the neighbors, Mom and Dad, and one of my best friends (who is also my taxidermist - www.whitakerswildlife.com ) standing over him congratulating me. It was several weeks before I realized he would score as high as he did. To this day I get all jittery when I think about it, truly a day to remember.
Pertinent details:
- Date – December 1, 2002
- Bow – 2002 Bowtech Patriot – 29.5” draw – 61#
- Arrow – Easton Epic 340 Carbon
- Broadhead – Muzzy 100 gr. 3 blade
- Sight – Copper John Dead Nuts
- Clothes – Scent Blocker 3D Leafy wear
- Gross Score – 205 7/8
- Net Score – 200 1/8
Boyd Mathes
What a great story and congratulations to Boyd on a great shot on his buck of a lifetime. Boyd harvested his buck the year before the Muzzy 200 Club was formed, but Mathes has been a Muzzy Man for a long, long time and when he heard about the club he contacted Muzzy. Boyd is our eleventh certified member of the Muzzy 200 Club.
The Boyd Mathis Buck sports one of the best racks we have seen in a while, and pictures do not do it justice. It is a very typical looking non-typical rack with just over 5 inches of deductions, and big drop-tine that ends in a black knob. At 200 1/8” net, it is the smallest rack in the Muzzy 200 Club Monster Bucks display, but it is one of the most beautiful in the display. With Boyd’s buck in the display the racks now start at 200 inches and go all the way to 293 inches.
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Archery only, fair chase harvest, Pope & Young certified, whitetail bucks. |
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All harvested by real, everyday, avid bowhunters with a Muzzy Broadhead. |
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Each rack scores 200 net inches or better. |
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Over 2,600 total inches of antler mass in only eleven racks! |