Hunter Passes From Heart Attack After Dragging Buck Out

Dan Temples, of Milledgeville, died of a surprise heart attack on Oct. 19 shortly after dragging his biggest buck ever from the woods. This is a buck he killed at a different time.

Fate doesn’t allow us to determine exactly how or when we’ll leave this earth, but Erin Temples and her brother Cole find peace in knowing their father passed away exactly how he wished.

Their father, Dan Temples, of Milledgeville, died of a surprise heart attack on Oct. 19 shortly after dragging his biggest buck ever—a main-frame 10-pointer—through the Baldwin County woods and loading it into his truck. They say their father was a devout Christian, and he passed away just as he told them he would like to go.

“My dad told me once, half-jokingly, I guess, that when he went, he wanted to die of a heart attack in the woods,” Cole said. “He said he didn’t want to end up in some home somewhere and be a burden to us.”

Erin says her dad was in great shape, and his death at age 61 stunned everyone.

“It was a big surprise and hard to process,” she said, “but we find comfort in knowing my dad was a huge Georgia fan and he got to see Georgia win a national championship. He got to see the Braves win a World Series. And he got his best buck ever. What a great year it was for him.”

Cole said his dad was a traditional hunter who just loved being in the woods.  He said his dad didn’t want to be bothered with all the modern conveniences.

“My dad didn’t grow up hunting,” he said. “He never really got into it until he got into it in college at Georgia. He never had any land, so he was into public hunting. He spent a long time bowhunting with an old Bear bow. He hunted with an old Winchester 12-gauge pump shotgun from about 1993 to 2015. He never had a trail camera, and he never used a feeder. He never hunted from a permanent tree stand. He always hunted from the ground or from an old climber that was bought in 2004.”

Blake Vincent chuckles when he recalled hunting with Dan.

“Dan was great,” he said. “He was easy going. He was an avid outdoorsman. He fished almost every morning. The woods were his happy place.

“He would tell me to not overcomplicate things. He said you didn’t need apps and cameras and all that. He would tell me to look at the natural signs and that would tell you all you needed to know.”