Story Of Hart County’s New Number 3 Buck Of All-Time

Brady Vaughn isn’t your typical big-buck slayer. He doesn’t get to deer hunt that often. The small farm where he hunts isn’t intensively managed for big deer.

He describes where he hunts as a pasture at the top end of a swamp near some chicken houses. In fact, it had become so overgrown in recent years that it had reached the point he almost couldn’t hunt there anymore.

Week 13 Truck-Buck winner Brady Vaughn

All the not-so-promising hunting spot did for the infrequent hunter last season was provide the No. 3 buck of all-time from Hart County. The 163 2/8-inch 10-point won Week 13 in GON’s Truck-Buck contest, and he’s headed to the Shoot-Out on July 31 at the Ag-Pro GON Outdoor Blast.

“An older family lets me hunt there,” the 35-year-old salvage salesman from Danielsville said. “I’ve been hunting there about 10 years. The husband passed away, and the wife still lets me hunt there. I’m the only one she allows to hunt. I try to help her out when she needs some things done.”

While the place isn’t typically a big-buck producer, Brady describes it as a fun place to hunt.

“When I go, I always see a lot of deer,” he said. “It’s always does and small bucks. I’ve never even put a camera up there. I just don’t fool with them.”

Brady said the place has grown up so badly in the past few years, something had to be done before he could hunt there last season.

“In October, I got my uncle and some of his workers to bring a skid steer in there to cut me some shooting lanes where I could see,” he said. “My uncle walked down in there in the woods and found some huge rubs. He put up a camera and a few days later he sent me a picture of this deer. It wasn’t a very good photo, but I could tell it was huge buck.”

The only problem was that work just wouldn’t let Brady get away often enough to see if he could spot the deer again. Finally, on Dec. 4, he eased into his stand before daylight. He was convinced that he was wasting his time, but at least he was hunting again.

“It was really warm for December,” he said. “I was hot and sweaty by the time I got in the stand. I wasn’t expecting to see a lot. I saw some does and small bucks heading back to their bedding area. The first 45 minutes after daylight was good with lots of deer moving through, but the action seemed to slow as the sun came up.

“I had been sitting for a while with no activity when about 9:30, I looked up and a doe crossed the end of one of my lanes. I got my gun up just in case. Good thing I did because the big boy was right behind her. I whistled and he stopped and I shot. I heard a pop, and he disappeared behind some thick stuff. I knew the bullet had hit something, but it was a 240-yard shot, so I was a little nervous from not knowing for sure that I hit him.

“I called my dad and a few buddies and told them that I thought I had shot a big one. I gave the buck about an hour and a half to lay, and I prayed that he was down. I finally got down and went to where I shot him. He hadn’t made it 20 yards.”

Brady said two things really made his biggest buck even extra special.

“Just two weeks before I had gone to Illinois and taken a 148-inch buck with my bow,” he said. “I never dreamed that two weeks later that I would take a buck bigger than that where I hunt in Georgia.

“The other thing is that I learned that I had qualified for the Truck-Buck Shoot-Out. I shot that buck with a .270 A-Bolt that my dad had won as a weekly winner in the Truck-Buck Shoot-Out in the 90s.”

Hart County Best Bucks Of All-Time