Sumter Buck Could Be New County Record

Thomas Lamb, of Americus, killed a buck in Sumter County on Sept. 15 that could end up being a new county bow record. A preliminary green score has the symmetrical 10-pointer grossing 153 6/8 inches and netting 149, only 1/8 of an inch from the current No. 1 bow buck.

Thomas Lamb, of Americus, killed a buck in Sumter County on Sept. 15 that could end up being a new county bow record. The symmetrical 10-pointer grossed 153 6/8 inches and netted 149, only 1/8 of an inch from the current No. 1 bow buck.

In July, Thomas and his friend, Hilton, put out corn and some 4S Draw deer attractant and set up their trail cameras to see what kind of deer they had on a new piece of land they had gained access to hunt. They captured several pictures of two bucks that made their shooter list. One was an old 7-point buck, and the other was the 10-pointer that Thomas ended up killing. Both bucks were always together, but it wasn’t until Wednesday, Sept. 13, that Thomas and Hilton finally ended up getting a picture of the two bucks during daylight hours.

On Sept. 15, despite 91- degree weather, Thomas went to his stand.

After settling into his stand, Thomas saw three deer pretty quickly, but then things got quiet. Later on that evening, the old 7-pointer appeared, which told Thomas that the 10 would be nearby, if they were still running together.

“I was watching the 7- pointer, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t see his head. I could see his body, and he was moving his hooves up and down. A few seconds later, I see and hear horns, so I knew there was a deer over there that he was sparring with,” he said.

At 7:30 p.m., Thomas stood up to see what was going on, and it was at that point that he could see both the 7- and the 10-pointer sparring 50 yards in front of him.

Once they got done sparring with each other, they headed down a cut lane right toward Thomas. The 7 came up under his stand and began feeding on the 4S Draw.

“The 7-pointer was the more dominant deer, so the 10 wouldn’t ever come in while he was there. I waited 10 minutes or so until the 7 left, and the 10 finally came in at 20 yards,” said Thomas.

“I shot him, and he didn’t run but maybe 20 yards and fell over,” said Thomas. “I caught the top of his lungs, so he didn’t go very far.”

Weighing 230 pounds, the buck’s antlers didn’t seem to match up until Thomas got down and went to see the deer.

“My first thoughts were that he wasn’t as big of a deer as I thought he was, but when I gained my composure and got down, and got up to him, he was even bigger than what I originally thought. Then when we put the tape on him, it really shocked me,” said Thomas.

Thomas will have to wait the required 60-day drying period before he can have his buck officially scored for GON’s County-by-County Big-Buck Rankings list. If you have a deer that needs to be scored for any of GON’s records lists, a list of measurers is located at www.boone-crockett.org and www.pope-young.org.

After the scoring is completed, GON will need a copy of the score sheet. It’s not the responsibility of the measurer to share scores with GON. Email your score sheet to [email protected].

For all bucks entered in GON’s Truck-Buck contest, just bring the antlers to one of GON’s annual scoring days after deer season. GON uses official measurers, so all scores will be added to the appropriate list.