Dad Watches Son Shoot 188-Inch Monroe County Buck

A 16-year-old young man couldn’t believe his eyes when a 19-pointer walked into his Monroe County food plot on the afternoon of Nov. 19. Although Addison Wallace and his dad Tim, of Blackshear, had been hunting this property for four years and had been running trail cameras since June, they had no clue this 188 6/8-inch buck was around.

“We’re still pinching ourselves. I’ve never had so many texts in my life from so many different people,” said Tim.

Both Tim and Addison decided to hunt the south end of their 400-acre tract, a piece of land they had permission to hunt from a good friend.

“I never hunt the south end, I just happened to move my climber down there that afternoon,” said Tim.

As it turned out, Tim and Addison both decided to hunt the south end of the property that afternoon, and what would unfold would be one of those special afternoons in the deer woods that this father and son will remember for a long time.

Tim would be hunting one arm of an L-shaped food plot that bordered some thick timber. Addison would hunt the other arm of the L-shaped food plot, and as the crow flies both stands through the woods were several hundred yards apart. The food plot was planted in soybeans and Buck Forage Oats that were about 12 inches high.

“I got up in the stand about 4 o’clock,” said Addison. “I was in a single ladder stand, and I think it was around 4:30 or 4:45, I had three does come in on a different food plot straight out about 140 yards.”

As Addison was enjoying watching the does feed, Tim couldn’t believe what was playing out in front of his stand. The thick-racked 19-pointer was coming through the thick timber right toward the L-shaped plot.

“He came right out of a thick timber tract,” said Tim. “I could of shot him two or three times.”

However, Tim wanted his son to see and hopefully get a shot at the buck.

“Addison killed an 8-point two years ago, and he has waited very patiently to shoot something much larger. He has passed on many nice 8s, but we never could imagine it would be 180-class deer,” said Tim.

When the buck stepped from the timber into the food plot, he stood 71 yards from Tim in his climbing stand, but still, he laid off the trigger. Addison, who still couldn’t see the buck from the other end of the plot, was 160 yards away from the buck. All a nervous dad could do was watch and hope his son would see the deer and shoot. Tim did have enough forethought to whip out his iPhone and video the buck in hopes that Addison would pull the trigger.

“The way the food plot goes down, there is blind spot there, and he couldn’t see that buck until he walked up 3 or 4 yards more,” said Tim.

With Tim and his iPhone videoing, Addison finally saw the buck.

“When I saw the deer, he was moving, and then he stopped dead in the middle of the food plot and was eating,” said Addison. “All I could see was the right side of the main frame, and from 160 yards, I could tell he was definitely a shooter. I moved my rifle around and hit my grunt to get him to look at me. He looked up at me, and now I am looking at him through my scope. When he looked at me, I knew it was a monster. It didn’t look like a deer that was supposed to be in Georgia. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ When he looked up, I pushed my gun on fire and zoomed in my scope a little more and lined it up and squeezed off the trigger.”

The .308 bullet found its mark through both lungs.

“I knew I made a good shot,” said Addison “He ran into the timber, but we could hear him crashing. He was making a lot of noise like he was definitely injured. I heard him crash and obviously my dad did, as well. I put my rifle back across my ladder stand and called my dad. I was very excited.”

“He was trembling,” said Tim. “I got down there first, and there was a pretty good splattering of blood.”

When Addison arrived 160 yards later, he walked a good blood trail just 30 yards and found his buck.

The buck was scored unofficially by Jillian’s Taxidermy in Macon as is a main-frame 12-pointer with seven abnormal points for a total of 12 3/8 abnormal inches. With 188 6/8 total inches, there’s still almost 13 inches of side-to-side deductions, so it’ll net likely somewhere in the mid 170s as a non-typical.

Monroe County All-Time Record Bucks

Rank	Score	Name	Year	County	Method	Photo
1	240 3/8 (NT)	John Hatton Jr.	1973	Monroe	Gun	View
2	191 4/8	Buck Ashe	1961	Monroe	Gun	View
3	173 3/8	Unknown	1979	Monroe	Gun
4	170 4/8	T.E. Land	1958	Monroe	Gun
5	187 6/8 (NT)	Danny Robinson	2019	Monroe	Gun	View
6	162 6/8	James Mock	1971	Monroe	Gun
7	185 6/8 (NT)	Mike Gordon	2012	Monroe	Found
8	161	Ronnie Hay	1972	Monroe	Gun
9	183 3/8 (NT)	Addison Wallace	2020	Monroe	Gun
10	159	L.L. Rowan	1974	Monroe	Gun