Bow-Buck Caught On Trail-Cam Before And After Shot

I am a longtime reader and subscriber of GON and love the magazine. I currently live in Atlanta, but I grew up in and have hunted my whole life in Dooly County where I grew up in Unadilla. I was hunting the week of Thanksgiving 2019, and I had a really exciting hunt—and accompanying trail-camera pictures—on the afternoon of Nov. 25 that I wanted to share. 

I was bowhunting a creek bottom with about 30 yards of hardwoods on either side. There is a really thick 7- to 8-year-old cutover of planted pines on either side of the hardwoods where the deer like to bed. I was carrying my climbing stand in that afternoon and setting up near a major creek crossing where I have seen a lot of activity before.

I had just gotten to my location and got the climber attached to the tree about 4 p.m. As soon as I stepped into the climber—but before I had a chance to start climbing—I heard deer running right toward me. A hot doe came running past at about 10 to 15 yards with two nice bucks right on her tail.

The second buck spotted me standing 3 feet off the ground in my stand, and he ran back the way he came about 30 yards. I jumped down out of the stand to grab my bow, which was laying on the ground attached to my pull-up rope. I could still see both bucks at this point, one on either side of me. The buck that ran off must have been too worried about chasing the doe to bother with me because he came back past me again. I was able to stop him and get a shot from the ground at about 12 to 15 yards. It all happened in about 30 seconds, and my heart was pounding!

Brian Byrd with his bow-buck from last season.

The icing on the cake is that I have a trail camera at that creek crossing. When I was tracking the deer, I saw that the buck had run right past the camera so I checked the SD card. I had a picture of him coming down the trail toward me at 4:02 p.m., and then I had another picture of him running back past the camera after I shot him at 4:05—with the arrow still sticking out of his chest. I was able to track him 125 yards or so into the cutover where I found him. 

And here he comes… the Dooly County 10-pointer was chasing a doe along with another buck, heading toward Brian’s tree, where the hunter hadn’t even had a chance to start up in his climber.

This was by far the most exciting hunt I have been apart of, and I just thought trail-camera pictures made it that much cooler. I thought I would share the story and pictures with you all. 

The buck runs back by the camera after the shot. Brian recovered the buck just 125 yards away.