Wilkinson County Non-Typical Booner

Georgia’s first Boone & Crockett class buck in two years has fallen in Wilkinson County. On the morning of Nov. 19, 1990, Dwaine Davis, of Macon, killed a monster non-typical buck barely 10 minutes after he climbed into his stand.

Dwaine’s family owns several tracts of land in Wilkinson County, one of which consists of about 150 acres, and it hasn’t been hunted in five years until this season. The day before Dwaine killed his buck, his brother had shot at and wounded a nice 11-pointer. The blood trail ran out, and after 10 people and two hounds searched the area for hours without success, Dwaine decided the area had been disturbed too much to hunt there the next morning. He instead hunted across the road.

Dwaine Davis is pictured here with the incredible set of antlers, which were already at the taxidermist when GON met with Dwaine to get his story.

Dwaine overslept the next morning, sinking plans to drive by and enter a local big buck contest. It was 7:15 a.m. before he got his climbing stand positioned 10 feet up a pine tree overlooking a peanut field.

The 60-acre field had already been harvested and turned, leaving mostly dirt with some new shoots of grass in places. Behind Dwaine was a small tract of woods and his cousin’s house, and 200 yards across the field was a strip of thick briars that dropped of into a 100-foot wide strip of open hardwood bottom.

Dwaine had barely got his seat warm when he spotted a doe through his binoculars. The deer was in the right corner of the field about 250 yards away along the edge of the brush. He had decided that morning that he’d take a doe for meat. As he peered through the binoculars, a tremendous buck stepped into view behind the doe. Dwaine got a good look at the buck—good enough that the size of the deer really shook him up.

“I put the gun up, but I got really nervous and starting shaking so bad that I couldn’t hold the scope on him,” said Dwaine.

He lowered the .30/06 and closed his eyes. Dwaine peeked through squinted eyes and watched as the buck followed behind the doe, cutting the distance between hunter and deer to about 100 yards. Dwaine collected himself and again raised his rifle, but by this time the buck had moved behind a patch of grass that hid all but his head and neck.

“The doe was looking right at me, and I was afraid they were about to spook,” said Dwaine. “I didn’t want to shoot him in the neck, so I dropped down about an inch into the grass and shot.”

The buck and doe took off in opposite directions, with the buck stopping at the corner of the filed where Dwaine had first seen him. The buck was looking at the doe. Dwaine shot again, and the buck headed for the hardwood bottom.

Dwaine’s first thought was that he had missed the buck, so he hurried down to get in position in case the buck came back after the doe. After waiting about 30 minutes and seeing a doe and 6-pointer, he went ahead and checked to see if he had hit the buck. There was no blood where he took the first shot and Dwaine followed the buck’s tracks to where it was standing at the second shot. He found one tiny spot of blood, then a trail and finally the buck of a lifetime.

“I picked up his rack and started counting points,” said Dwaine. “I got 17, and I just said, ‘Oh Lord.'”

The non-typical rack green-scored 202 3/8 B&C inches. If that score holds up after the 60-day drying period, Dwaine will have the first B&C from Wilkinson County.

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