The Prodigal

The Georgia woods hold a lot of secrets. Some of these secrets will be found out, while others may never. Many deer hunters have stories of the “one that got away” or of a big Georgia buck that they shot and never found. I am sure many hunters, especially bowhunters, have stories very similar to this.

Last year, my son Charlie had just turned 10 years old. Charlie has been blessed. He has been able to hunt and harvest some extremely nice bucks. We were looking forward to another season of hunting together. I was going to be settling in to chase the biggest buck of my life, but opening day of the youth rifle season was going to come first. We had a very nice 6-point buck that we named Jet the year before, and we were going to go after him. We actually took a crossbow for Charlie a couple of hunts to try to get on him.

Anyway, the opening day of youth season rolls around, and we sat an hour in the dark. The sun came up just a little, and Jet had already walked out of the woods. He wound up circling out of the food plot to give Charlie a longer shot than he normally would take. He shot, and we saw Jet mule-kick and run off. We thought he had gone into one little row of trees and died because we never saw him come out. We waited a few minutes and looked, but we never found blood or any sign of Jet. We wound up taking out my drone to try to look for him, and we called a dog to try to find him later in the day. We never found him. I went back again the next day with my drone, and I saw some buzzards, but never found him. I did mark the spot where I saw the buzzards on OnX.

Charlie’s Hunt For Jet

Fast forward to Dec. 13. Deer season had been incredible so far. I had tagged out on not only my biggest buck ever, but another awesome 8-point. Charlie had taken an awesome 9-point, as well. We were closing in on another buck for him, but something told me I needed to check in on Jet before we did that. I didn’t feel right letting Charlie shoot a third buck if Jet was dead somewhere. We hadn’t seen him again on camera at all, so I figured that he was. The morning of Dec. 13, I watched the drone footage of those buzzards again. I found an area and made sure I had it marked correctly. My friend Connor and I went out to look that afternoon. We had walked through the woods we usually walked to look for deer, and we were getting closer to the area I had marked on the map. He literally said, “There’s no way we will find a deer in this thick stuff.” I told him that I figured this might be where he is. We turned the corner where the only rays of sunshine were coming through the pines, and there he was. He was laid out in the middle of a clearing. He had only gone about 600 yards total. We just never went the right way. It was such an exciting find, and I knew that Charlie would be super excited. It was definitely bittersweet that we didn’t find him the day he shot him.

Finding Jet

This is just the beginning of the story, though.

You see, I have a “one that got away” story, too. Oct. 28, 2018 wound up being a pretty big day for me. Not only was it my 30th birthday, but it was the first really cold afternoon for that deer season. I had been skunked on bucks for around four years until 2017. I was able to take my top two bucks the year before, so I was getting back in a groove. I had one buck that I wanted to take in 2018. I just called him “The Big 8.” His name is kind of funny now because I have probably taken four or five 8-points since 2018 that were much bigger, but at that time he was the one. I remember that day being a tough one for me. We had some family coming to our house on the old home place that I hunt. I always love every chance I can get to gather with family, but this time was different for me. I felt selfish, but I had to go hunting. I was still coaching varsity football back then in the fall, and I didn’t get many chances to go hunting like I wanted to. This was a Sunday night, and I decided I was going to go hunting. I remember the sit was uneventful for a while, but eventually several deer had come out into the food plot. I was sitting in a double ladder in an old tree in the middle of a field. I was about 160 yards from the plot itself. I have since gotten much closer and much more comfortable by putting a Fatboy Blind in the field. Anyway, I remember seeing a buck come out of the trees with his nose down. He came in and checked the does in the plot, but then settled in and began to eat. I got my rifle up and squeezed off a shot. I say squeezed, but I am sure that I jerked the trigger because I know that I was in full blown buck-fever mode. I got down a few minutes later to go look. I found two large chunks of meat and fat on the ground where he had been standing. I knew that I had at least hit something. I didn’t find any blood, so I decided to come back the next morning. I took a half-day at work so that I could spend some time looking. We looked and looked. We called a dog to look, but never found anything. I went back every day for several days looking for buzzards, but I just never found anything. This just looked like it would have to go in the “one that got away” category.I have hunted and taken 6 bucks, my son has taken 6 bucks, and my wife has taken 2 bucks all on this same property since 2018. Every time we’ve taken one this same buck has been on my mind.

That takes us back to Dec. 13, 2023. After finding Charlie’s buck Jet, I started wondering about The Big 8. I started thinking that maybe this area could be one where he may have ended up. I wasn’t able to go the next day because we were taking the boys to see Santa Clause at Bass Pro Shop, but I was able to go back the day after. It was Dec. 15, and I went back to the same place where we saw Jet. I found several sets of deer bones. I would find a bone and then walk circles around it until I found the skull. Every deer I found was a doe, and some of them must have been really old. I finally came to an area that had some bones. I started walking circles in that area and could see one area where the sunlight came through the trees. Right at the end of the sunlight was a racked buck’s skull. He was sitting up perfectly. I knew the second that I saw him that it was The Big 8. He was another 240 yards from where we found Jet. It was honestly a miracle that I ever found him. If the sun had not been shining on him, I don’t think I would have seen him anyway. This was an unreal moment for me. Barely a month before this I had taken my biggest buck ever after a 3-year-long chase for him. The happiness I felt from finding the skull of this buck was equal to if not more than the buck the month before.

Finding The Big 8

From the time I shot The Big 8, 1,874 days passed until I found him. There is no telling how many deer have walked right by where he was laying. I’m sure that some of the deer that we have shot have all walked right by him. He was always there, I just didn’t know it. I didn’t look hard enough for five whole years. Like most things do, this whole story takes me back to my faith. This buck was always in the same place. I never could find him, but he was always there. A lot of life had passed by with him laying out there, but eventually I found him. I found him because I took my searching to a new level. This reminds me of the story of the Prodigal Son. A father had two sons. One of them asked for all of his inheritance while his father was still alive. The son took all of his inheritance and left to another country that was far away. He wound up living very foolish. He lost everything. He got so bad off that he went to work for a pig farmer, and was begging to eat the food that the pigs were eating. He wound up coming to his senses and going home. His father saw him coming from a long way and ran to him. He hugged him and never asked any questions about where he had been or what he had been doing. That is the same way that God is to us. Just like that buck was always there, I just didn’t look hard enough. We don’t always look hard enough for God. We get to living our lives, doing our own things, and staying busy with everything that comes with that. We don’t always feel God there, but he is always there. He doesn’t ask questions about where we’ve been or what we’ve done, He just wants us to come home. Now, there are consequences for our sins. Just like the prodigal son got so low that he wanted to eat with the pigs, we sometimes get so low that we don’t see a way out. God is always there waiting for us to come home. God has certainly blessed me with a lot of incredible memories in the Georgia woods. I don’t really have a “one that got away” story anymore, but I definitely have a story that I will never forget.