Ohio Student Athlete Arrows 11th Big Buck in 11 Years

As a busy high school junior juggling school, basketball, cross country and other commitments, Ohio’s Aleah Wozniak has limited time to jump into a treestand or blind each fall. So, when the 150-class buck she and her father, David, had been watching on their Browning Trail Cameras for the previous few weeks entered the food plot near their stand on the second evening of the 2025 archery deer season, she got excited, hoping she’d get a shot at the only buck on her hit list.

“There were two mature bucks that hang out together in this area,” Aleah said. “I [first] saw the other one that wasn’t my target. He came out to my left, down in this corner, and started coming up the hill and made his way across the food plot toward several acorn-loaded oaks at the edge of the plot.

“I [then] looked back over to the same spot where he came out, and my target buck was walking out.”

After shakily ranging the deer at 25 yards, Aleah regained her composure, drew back her Hoyt Carbon RX-7, and let an Easton Axis arrow fly. Both she and her Dad thought the shot was solid, but after following the blood trail for 150 yards without finding the animal, they decided to back out and resume the search early the next morning.

The then 16-year-old was understandably a bit anxious, because she didn’t know for certain whether the deer was down, but she was far from discouraged, since she’s already a veteran bowhunter with thousands of hours of archery practice under her belt.

You see, Aleah isn’t like most teenagers who deer hunt, only getting out a handful of times each year. Even though she’s still in high school, she already has been archery hunting for more than a decade, taking her first couple whitetails at age 6. An avid bowhunter, you’ll find her afield throughout the season as her schedule permits, from the archery opener right on through to the bone-chilling days of late January.

Hunting first with a crossbow and then with a compound, the now 17-year-old has scored on an incredible 11 Ohio bucks in 11 years of archery hunting, plus deer, elk, pronghorn and bears in other states. What’s even more impressive is that of the 11 Buckeye State bucks she has killed — three with a crossbow and eight with a compound — every one has topped the 140-inch mark, with four scoring over 150!

An Early Start

A typical youngster, Aleah loves spending time with friends, playing basketball for her high school and camping. However, she has also headed afield with her father, a lifelong bowhunter, since the tender age of 3.

She took her first buck — an 8-pointer that scored 143 1/8 in the Buckeye Big Buck Club records — with a crossbow when she was in first grade, and by age 8 she was shooting a compound. During her first year hunting with that bow, she showed the toughness and tenacity that have already made her a world-class bowhunter, persevering well into the winter and downing a big 9-pointer in mid-January, a time of the season when most bowhunters — including many adults — have long since given up.

“What I love so much about archery specifically is just the challenge that comes with it,” Aleah said. “It’s obviously completely different than using a crossbow and gun hunting. You have to put so much work and effort and time into practicing and commit to it.”

Both Aleah and her Dad credit her success to not only dedicating herself to becoming an excellent and confident shot, but also making sure to keep everything fun along the way.

“We joke around a lot. We mess around in the stand more than we should,” David said. “She’s much stealthier in the stand. I get the hairy eyeball from her a few times a season.”

Since Aleah first picked up a compound bow as a fourth grader, she has practiced as much as her schedule permits, immersing herself in every aspect of the sport and spending as much time in the woods as possible. Her focus has been solely on becoming the best bowhunter she can be, ensuring she can make a good, ethical shot every time she takes aim on an animal.

“I try to help Dad as much as I can,” Aleah said. “I have scheduled practices, open gyms and weightlifting with my high school [basketball] team, not to mention working out with my Dad, as well as a personal trainer, but whenever I get a chance to go out on the properties, we’ll plant [food plots], check cameras, put out minerals…even just cleaning up trails and stuff, preparing treestands for the seasons.”

According to David, his focus in teaching Aleah to shoot a bow and bowhunt was ensuring every aspect of the process was both educational and enjoyable, especially when she was younger.

“I didn’t just have her shoot at a target or just 3D targets,” he said. “I would have her shoot balloons and even lighted balloons in low-light conditions. So, then you not only see the balloon, but you hear the crack or hear the pop. We’d put 10 balloons on a backstop, and she’d shoot 10 balloons in a row. I’d blow them up so they were like 3 inches [around].

“Or we’d play HORSE or PIG. We would do that with archery. Whoever would get the first shot would call the shot — you have to shoot at this distance at a quartering away deer — and [we’d go by] whoever’s closest to the 10-ring or whoever’s got the better shot. The second shooter would have to replicate that shot or improve upon it.”

Infusing some lightheartedness into the practice sessions undoubtedly paid off, with Aleah displaying precision accuracy on the target range, even at some incredibly long distances. David, a former videographer for Archer’s Choice with Ralph and Vicki Cianciarulo, started to document the journey, with the pair creating the social media pages, “My Story with Aleah,” where Aleah took people along on her practice sessions and bowhunting adventures. Do a Google search and you’ll find video clips of her shooting tight, 1-inch arrow groups at 30 yards or knocking out one of the lighted balloons at unbelievable distances out to 150 yards or more.

Budding Hoops Star

Aleah’s other passion is basketball. During the 2024-25 school year, as a sophomore at Tuscarawas Valley High School, she was part of the girls’ varsity team that went 19-6, won the district tournament and advanced to the state quarterfinals, losing to eventual state champion Portsmouth High School. Thanks to her 5-foot, 10-inch height and well-rounded skill set, her coaches deploy her at four of the five positions on the court, making her an invaluable asset in many situations.

“She’s really good,” David said. “I would use one word for her basketball career, the same as I would for her archery and hunting — driven.

“I’ve never seen a kid that age so driven and committed to something. She does have a goal of playing basketball in college. She’s got wonderful coaches and wonderful teammates at Tusky Valley and that’s extremely helpful. It’s a great group of girls she plays with, and she’s played with the same group of girls since third or fourth grade.”

Aleah, who also took up cross country this fall, said if there’s one thing she’s learned from playing both basketball and bowhunting, it’s the importance of perseverance.

“Really, it’s just commitment and focus,” she said. “A lot of times I’ll be practicing basketball and Dad will literally say ‘focus,’ because he can tell when I’m kind of not locked in. I think the same thing goes for archery. Whenever you’re practicing, you need to focus. I think that’s the big takeaway.”

Resuming The Search

The morning after Aleah took aim at her 2025 buck, David headed back to their hunting spot to search for the animal. He didn’t know it at the time, but it would only take a few minutes until he located the big 13-pointer, a 6x7 they’d named “Six Seven” after the current teen craze.

“Aleah had to be at school the next morning, because she takes some college classes at high school that she couldn’t miss. So, I went back myself bright and early — it was cold overnight — and the buck was only 25 yards from where we had stopped trailing,” David said.

Just as she arrived at school, Aleah received a cryptic cell phone photo from her Dad. It almost looked like David had snapped the shot accidentally.

“It was just grass and weeds and I didn’t know exactly what I was looking at,” Aleah recalled. “And then I saw it. I was like, Is that a tine right there? I started to get all excited.”

“I sent her a picture with one inch of an antler tine sticking out,” David said of the buck that sports an 18-inch inside spread and gross green-scored 154 inches. “The rest was just grass and brush.”

For Aleah and David, the good-humored photo was another reminder of the many special times the pair has spent together in the woods over the years. Before she was even in kindergarten, Aleah was accompanying her dad in the deer blind, and he has been encouraging and supporting her love for both archery and basketball since her early years in elementary school. In 2024, the pair were right next to each other when Aleah took her largest buck ever — a massive 18-pointer that officially grossed 172 inches.

“I’ve been in a treestand with him all my life,” Aleah said. “That’s such a big part of hunting — doing it with Dad.”

As for David, the hunt on Sept. 28, 2025, is one of many moments he will cherish spending time in the woods with his children. In addition to Aleah, he also has a 5-year-old son, Sutton, who just started hunting last year. Aleah spends as much time as she can practicing and hunting with her brother, helping to mentor and encourage him in the sport. In fact, she was by his side when he shot his first deer, and there to celebrate with him when he shot his first buck, a heavy beamed 10-pointer they called “Loppy.”

David is quick to note that while the family does have excellent whitetail hunting opportunities where they live, Aleah has worked extremely hard for every buck she has taken. In fact, four of her 11 wall hangers were harvested in the late season, once the snow and cold had settled in for the winter.

“I couldn’t be prouder,” David said. “There are life lessons to be learned with team sports like basketball and obviously bowhunting as well. The commitment to hard work, perseverance, and persistence, those will carry with Aleah for the rest of her life in any career and family. Those are life lessons that have been instilled in her. I’m amazed by her success over the years, but it’s well deserved.”

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