Newyorkupstate.com first reported. It’s an elusive deer that hunters on the east side of Skaneateles Lake have been quietly monitoring with awe on their trail cameras for 5 years.
Tuesday the legend came to an end with a single shot from an 80-year-old Skaneateles hunter.
Jim Buff, 80, a former chief of the community’s volunteer fire department, shot the massive, 17-point buck at about 70 yards with his 20-gauge shotgun.
It’s a deer that hunters over the years had affectionately called “Hollywood, “The Ghost Buck” and “Voltar.”
“He was half trotting all by himself. It (the slug) entered his right shoulder, caught the top part of his heart,” Buff said “He ran about 25 feet right into a tree and dropped.”
News of Buff’s buck spread fast, thanks to a number of cell phone calls and the fact that pictures were posted on several Upstate NY deer hunting Facebook pages.
Jesse Carr, also of Skaneateles, was hunting from a treestand several properties over from Buff’s Tuesday morning. He first spotted the buck with a doe just after 7 a.m. Carr said he had been monitoring the deer for 5 years on trail camera photos but had never actually seen him. He had posted a host of photos of the deer on the “It is good outdoors” Facebook page.
“We called him Hollywood because he was so well known,” he said. “Last year, I got pictures of him and counted 21 points on his rack. This year, he lost a couple of drop tines and stickers.”
Carr said he watched the two deer for a little bit and ended up taking a long shot at the buck as it began to leave. He missed and promptly called Jim Buff’s son, Andy, telling him that “Hollywood was on his way over and to get ready.”
Two minutes later, the son called Jesse back and told him it was all over. “My father just shot him,” he said.
Andy Buff said one group of local hunters called the deer “The Ghost Buck.”
“They’d see him each year on their trail cameras each year and then would be out of their lives for the deer season,” he said.
Buff and his kids, though, preferred to call the deer Voltar because it was so big – a monster buck, the father said.
After loading the massive deer in his son’s truck, word spread fast and several hunters stopped by to check it out and have pictures taken with it. A proud Buff then took it down to the Skaneateles Fire Department to show some of his buddies there. Once again, numerous pictures were taken.
It’s currently down at a son’s house in Tully, where a taxidermist will come to do an official measurement of its antlers and take the beginning steps to do a shoulder mount. He plans to hang the mount on the wall in a log cabin he owns in Cleveland, N.Y., alongside another 11-point buck he shot.