Hancock County “Brutus” Falls

Quinton Burch, of Eatonton, may reside in Putnam County, but he’s interested in moving Hancock County up on GON’s Best Counties For A Big Buck list.

Quinton certainly did his part after knocking down a typical, Hancock County 10-pointer on Oct. 27 that grossed 158 2/8 inches and won’t have much for side-to-side deductions. The unofficial green score was done by Drew Copelan at The Meat Shed Deer And Hog Processing.

“Earlier this month, the club president sent me a picture (of the big buck) saying, ‘This was taken behind your stand 50 yards or so. I already named the deer Brutus,’” said Quinton.

Here is a screen shot of the text message sent to Quinton to tell him Brutus was caught on trail camera 50 yards behind his stand in early October 2018.

On the afternoon that Quinton killed Brutus, he was hunting in a buddy stand with his No. 1 partner, his 12-year-old son, Luke. They were overlooking a food plot in an area of mixed pines and hardwoods.

“We got to the stand about 3:30 that afternoon,” said Quinton. “I was grunting and bleating, and nothing happened. About 4:30, I bleated one more time, and I looked to my right, and a young buck walked out. I said, ‘Alright son, you’re up. This is your deer.’”

Luke was looking to shoot his first buck on that Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, the young buck left the area too quickly to give Luke a steady and clear shot. 

“I heard a noise to my right, and I looked again, and all I saw was the left beam. I said, ‘Holy smokes what a deer!” said Quinton.

The buck was about 50 yards out of the food plot and working a scrape line. Quinton was worried the deer would disappear like the younger buck had minutes earlier. 

“He stopped, and all I could see was his rack on the other side of a tree and what I thought was the shoulder,” said Quinton. “I squeezed the trigger off, and I thought I made a good shot. I told my son we got to sit for 30 minutes. I was sitting there antsy and nervous, like a kid in a candy store.”

The father-and-son hunters were able to follow a good blood trail for about 75 to 100 yards. 

“After that, I just lost the blood,” said Quinton. “I called some buddies of mine from The Meat Shed and said I needed some help. They said, ‘Do you need a dog?’ I said, ‘I don’t care, just send me somebody to help me out.’”

When Quinton isn’t in the deer woods from September through January, you can find him skinning deer or making deer sausage at The Meat Shed. He was confident that The Meat Shed crew would find the deer if it was dead. Two fellow employees showed up and told Quinton to stand on last blood while they each went a different direction.

“My son was about 30 or 40 feet away from us and said, ‘Daddy, I got blood.’ I said, ‘OK son, you stand right there,’ and we all ran over there to him,” said Quinton.

The blood trail went another 50 or 60 feet, and they lost blood again.

“One of the guys who joined us walked on a ahead and said, ‘Oh my son, that is a big deer, found him!” said Quinton. “I went over there and looked at it and said, ‘Oh my gosh, it is a big one. We were hooping and hollering and jumping up and down, chasing everybody. It was fun that day.”

A clean typical 10-pointer that should make GON’s Fab-40 list in August.

Drew at The Meat Shed runs a Big-Buck Contest for those pay a $20 entry fee prior to the season. Currently, Quinton is winning that contest and could find himself the grand-prize winner of a $1,000 for having the largest grossing gun buck.

Although Quinton’s deer will not be entered into GON’s Truck-Buck contest since he was not a current magazine subscriber, the deer is certainly one GON will be watching closely as Quinton gets his buck scored sometime after the required 60-day drying period. Drew said he expects it to net around 154 inches, which should mean it’ll be like’s make the prestigious Fab 40, GON’s annual listing of the top-40 Georgia bucks of the previous season that is published every August.