Once In A Lifetime Buck Comes At Home

CR Palmer with his 173-inch bow buck from Meriwether County.

CR Palmer is serious about his bowhunting. He has hunted all over the Midwest in hopes of taking that buck of a lifetime. When not on those trips, he hunts on 260 acres of leased land in Meriwether County.

He never dreamed his buck-of-a-lifetime would come so close to home.

“The funny thing is that we had no history with this deer,” CR said about the monstrous buck he took on Sept. 29. “We study our deer pretty hard. We’ve never seen another deer with the same characteristics. We don’t know where he came from. He was just a bonus buck.”

The 15-point buck that grossed 173 1/8 inches first appeared on CR’s cameras in early August. He was pretty regular on camera in August and September.

“The week before I killed him, he started appearing on camera during the daylight, and I knew he was killable,” he said. “My dad and I put a lot of time hunting him for over a week and a half. We took turns hunting a particular stand. We had gotten pictures of him near that stand.

“My dad went to the beach on Wednesday, and he encouraged me to hunt for the buck while he was gone. I went down to the hunting land by myself on Thursday. It was really windy, so I was second-guessing myself. I got in the stand in the afternoon and I saw six to eight deer. Lo and behold, the buck showed up. He gave me a 35-yard broadside shot.

CR shot the buck with his Mathews compound bow.

“It was weird because I wasn’t nervous when I saw the buck or when I took the shot,” the 40-year-old construction worker said. “I kept my nerves in check. But I couldn’t stop shaking after I made the shot.

“I have a lot of good redneck buddies. I called them and told them what I had done, but I warned them to not get too excited because I hadn’t found him yet. I called my wife

“One of my buddies finally showed up. I got down out of the stand and found my arrow and it was a pass-through shot. It only took about five minutes to find the buck.

He had only run about 50 yards.”

The buck not only had a trophy rack, but it was also obvious he had not been going to Weight Watchers.

“We field-dressed the buck and it still weighed 195 pounds. He looked like a horse. It was the biggest-bodied deer I have ever seen in Georgia, by far.

“It was a main-frame 10-point, and it had 15 scoreable points. The inside spread wasn’t that good, it was only 12 2/8 inches, but its longest beam was 25 inches. The longest tine was 13 2/8.”

CR said the rest of his buddies were blown away once they saw the buck. He said his dad couldn’t have been more excited if he had killed the buck himself.

“That deer was a once-in-a-lifetime buck,” he said. “I’m a true bowhunter. That’s all I hunt with. To take that buck in my home state with a bow was special. It was a blessing from the Good Lord above.”

CR’s Meriwether County buck was a main-frame 10-pointer that had 15 scoreable points.