How To Find A Buck & Win A Truck

David Shepard said he’s going to drive his new Truck-Buck Shoot-Out John Megel Chevy until the wheels come off. David is a humble guy, but he’s not just a lucky hunter who happened to find himself in the Shoot-Out. He has 12 P&Y bucks under his belt and a toolbox full of hunting skill to back them up.

It’s easy.

To think that it’s easy, that is. Why, these pages are fair packed with rocking-chair-racked whitetails almost every month. And we all know of the rookie—or his wife—who nearly tripped over the trophy of a lifetime and hauled it home in a pal’s pickup. Nothing to this big buck business, right?

David Shepard knows better.

It’s one thing to kill a big deer; but 12 Pope & Young heads on the wall? That consistency is the true test, and it’s not picked up on the sidewalk.

“I was fortunate enough to have somebody bring me up the right way,” David says of his early hunting days. “If you’re not lucky enough to have that, this buck business can be a tough row to hoe. Before anything else, I have to thank my dad (Don) and my cousin Jeffrey (Shepard) for taking countless hours with me. I’m not an authority on this by any means, but what I’ve learned has been mostly at their heels.”

If you see this quiet, humble 38-year-old tooling around Dublin these days, he’ll be at the wheel of a spanking new, brilliant red pickup—courtesy of  GON and John Megel Chevrolet via being the last man standing in our 2024 Truck-Buck Shoot-Out. I’ve known Don Shepard since we both were a lot younger than David. We were a couple of Oconee River rats who ran up and down from Blackshear’s Ferry what was most likely construed by some folks as too many days a week. (But you ain’t killing no deer and catching no fish from the couch.)

I’ve been on the Shoot-Out mic for quite a few truck giveaways, but I have to admit that this one was special. David ripped off seven straight pellet rifle shots without a miss, from full-size skeet to raw eggs. Don, who doesn’t get too excited, got too excited.

“The first time he shot one of those guns was when he came here to practice,” Don said, with a touch of wonder, celebrating a couple of minutes after the final shot. “He didn’t want to use one leading up to the Shoot-Out, then get here and have another one that shot a little different.”

I thought about that process, and realized that it provided insight as to how this young hunter works: put a plan together, then stick to it as much as the quarry allows.

“I killed my first deer when I was 8 years old, with a 20-gauge shotgun and buckshot,” David says. “My first with a bow, I was 12. I’ve shot some does with a rifle since then but haven’t shot a buck with one since I was 15. Most of those were in Laurens County. I spent half of my young adulthood in a deer stand.”

David was just 17 years old in 2003 when he took his first P&Y buck in Laurens County.

Unmarried and a barber with a four-day work week, he reserves the time to put into his greatest passion: the hunt.

“I don’t feel like it’s my place to tell anybody how to hunt, but I see a lot of young hunters these days look at their phones and try to keep up with all that’s going on. But that’s not the way it happens. You have to get your boots on the ground, and you also have to shoot a lot of deer with a bow to become proficient at killing them.”

Hunters know that there is a veritable multitude of items that must be checked off the list before a trophy buck hits the ground. Say what you will about rifle versus bow, feeding and non-feeding, using the wind, hunting from the ground or a blind… the list goes on and on. But I have no hesitation whatsoever in providing the single most important criteria: first and foremost, there has to BE a buck for you to hunt!

Let’s get those boots on the ground.

“I have several small tracts of land, by permission, in Laurens County,” David relates. “The last several Pope & Young deer I’ve killed I have multiple years of pictures of them on trail cameras. At any given time, there are several deer that I’m keeping track of. Let’s say that out of 10 there may be two that don’t just get gone or shot by another hunter or run over by a car. Then, you have to allow them to grow old enough to put on the proper rack before making that final decision to shoot. If you can find them then.

“The more you know about that deer’s habits, the farther ahead of the game you are. But it’s still hunting, and you have to put in the time and effort to make it work.”

But what if THE buck has vacated the premises? Adapt. And that’s what got David into the Shoot-Out.

“Last year (2023) I couldn’t find a deer I wanted. The biggest I had on camera was a 4-year-old that I didn’t want to shoot. I’ve been reading GON all my life and had been seeing all the big deer coming out of Fulton County, so I wanted to try it.”

And just how does one who grew up two hours south of downtown Atlanta and knows nobody there go about that process?

“I started finding landowners up there by using an app on my phone, and began seeking permission to hunt. Fulton is the only county I obtained access to. The spot is about 20 minutes from downtown Atlanta; it’s suburban, but not in folks’ backyards. I drove straight up there the day I got permission, put two cameras up, came back home, then went back in the dark the next day, Monday, to hunt. I got a glimpse of the deer right at daylight. I knew he was good, but I couldn’t get a good enough look at him to make the call and shoot. What I  needed was a better look at him, so I came down to check the cameras to see if he was on there. If this really was the deer I wanted, I had to be sure and not take a shot at something less and maybe blow this spot.”

Let’s whoa up for a spell and go back over that paragraph, lest the simplicity of David’s words allow us to miss something: searching through the app, humbly speaking with folks you’ve never seen or heard tell of, striking permission gold, two hours up, hanging cameras in their proper places, two hours back home, two up next morning…  Easy, ain’t it? And it gets better.

“It was mid-morning, and while I was down I thought about going to get something to eat. I was on the ground about 45 minutes, but then I had seen him on camera, too. So I decided to go back up in my Lone Wolf climber and sit all day if I had to.”

That decision was about to pay off in a very large way.

“At 11:30, the buck came back in. I shot him at 20 yards with a 165-grain broadhead, behind the shoulder. He ran 20 yards behind me, and I watched him fall, which was pretty cool. The first day I ever hunted in Fulton County, I killed that deer. It was well worth all that went into it.”

With 161 4/8 inches of antler, the buck got David into the Shoot-Out, and the rest is history. That competition came down to a final trio of shooters, with David in the middle. The first missed his chance at a raw egg, David splattered it, and that left one final shot for a truck. I was looking directly at David when the last pellet struck a smidgen low. And the understated celebration came as no surprise: he remained seated, raised his right arm overhead with fist clenched, and waved a few circles.

Just so you’ll know, Don wasn’t quite that inhibited a few minutes after it was all over.

“I just bought him a Ranch Hand for the front of his new truck and side steps for Christmas,” he laughed as we met up. “I don’t know what he’ll do with that one now.”

I do.

“I haven’t put all that many miles on my 2022, but it’s about to be for sale,” David said. “I’m going to drive that Chevrolet until the wheels come off of it, with GON stickers plastered everywhere!”

And it won’t be driven exclusively to the deer woods. The cameras are running, but first things first.

“Some of my favorite memories are from dove shoots as a kid, and growing up hunting everything there is to hunt. Killing squirrels and watching Daddy flour them up and drop them in the hot grease… I’d like to be able to help others when it comes to deer hunting, but I’m by no means an authority on it. And it’s not all about the big deer for me; it’s more about family. What really keeps me coming back is that none of us has it all figured out. That’s the best part of it.”