Peach County Crossbow Giant Taken By Youth

Cort Pearson with his giant Peach County buck taken with a crossbow on Sept. 12.

Lawton Pearson was tired from a long day of dove hunting and the wind wasn’t right, so when his son Cort said they still had time to go deer hunting, his dad tried to talk him out of the spur-of-the-moment trip.

The 12-year-old from Fort Valley will always be thankful that his dad reluctantly agreed to his wishes.

All Cort did was take a monstrous 14-point buck with his crossbow that will end up being one of the largest bucks ever taken with a crossbow in Georgia. The buck was taken on a 33-acre piece of property the family owns in Peach County.

“We think we saw this same buck last September in the headlights in our driveway,” said Lawton Pearson, Cort’s dad. “It was a typical 10-point then. If it was the same buck, it added about 30 inches of antler and four more points since last year.”

Cort, an avid deer hunter who has taken seven bucks since taking his first deer at age 6, saw the buck in the woods near his home in August. He was stunned at what he saw.

On Sept. 8, the buck began appearing on trail-camera pictures in a pecan orchard the family owns about a mile from their home. Cort was raring to go.

“Cort wanted to go, so we went,” Lawton said about that Sept. 12 hunt. “The wind wasn’t ideal, but we went anyway. We got into a ground blind. The way it turned out, the deer came out from where we didn’t think he would so the wind didn’t matter.

“He made a perfect, 24-yard shot.”

The buck is a main-frame 10-pointer with four abnormal points. With nearly 25 inches of abnormals, Cort’s buck will score much better as a non-typical. Cort’s 60-day drying period is almost up. Although Lawton wasn’t confident in exactly what the buck would score, there is no doubt it will make the Top-10 list of the best crossbow kills ever in GON‘s Georgia Deer Records. How high on the list is yet to be determined.

Amazingly not everyone was celebrating with the young man from Fort Valley.

“When I showed it to my friends, some said congrats, but some of them were highly jealous,” Cort said.

Cort was asked if he believes that he’ll ever take a buck bigger.

“I don’t think so, but I sure hope so,” he said.

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