Pierce County Buck Expected To Crack Top-10

On Friday, Oct. 22, fate, luck and nearly a decade of hard work all came together for Dillon Veal, of Blackshear, on a late-afternoon hunt on his family lease.

“My family has been hunting the lease in Pierce County for roughly eight years, and we’ve done our best to manage it for quality bucks. It’s nice to see it pay off,” said Dillon.

Dillon Veal, of Blackshear, with a great Pierce County buck.

“We first started getting pictures of this buck last year when he was about 110 inches or so. We all agreed as a family that we’d pass on him and give him another year to grow, and man he had really packed on some serious mass when he showed back up this season.”

The buck first showed back up on camera this season in August at a feeding site. Though he wasn’t coming often, he also made appearances at two other feeding sites in the weeks leading up to bow season. Though Dillon very rarely hunts feeding locations, he uses the pictures to determine how bucks are moving about the property.

“To be honest, I just didn’t think I was going to be able to cross paths with the buck, despite how bad I wanted to,” said Dillon.

Then on Sept. 23, just as daylight was slipping away, the buck closed to within 30 yards of Dillon’s stand before disappearing into the darkness.

“I just couldn’t see well enough to get a shot, but being that close really lit a fire under me to hunt him.”

Dillon began to hunt the buck every chance he could, changing stand locations as needed according to the wind. 

“At the start of rifle season, I put a cell cam on a food plot, but I wasn’t getting any pics of the buck. Then, on Oct. 22, he showed up that night.”

The next day, Dillon headed for the woods as soon as he got off work around 4:30. After getting settled into his stand, Dillon patiently waited in the silence of the woods.

“The spot I was in we had discovered last year when trailing a deer. Me and my dad went back in there last January and scouted it, then in May I went in and hung a stand.”

At roughly 6:00, Dillon got a glimpse of the buck and readied for a shot.

“He was about at 100 yards, and I had a little gap in the trees I was shooting through. I squeezed the trigger, and once the rifle fired, I couldn’t see him. I was confident I had hit him, but I couldn’t sit there and wait. I had to climb down to go see,” said Dillon.

When he went to where the buck had been standing, he could see the buck had fallen pretty much dead in his tracks.

“I’m still in shock, I never thought I’d kill a buck like this,” said Dillon. “That same weekend my dad, Todd Veal, killed his first-ever 10-point on the property and my brother Rhett also killed a good buck. It was an awesome weekend.”

Dillon’s buck has been gross scored at 138 inches and after the required drying and deductions, he should be pretty high in the Pierce County all-time rankings, likely making the top-10. The buck has an impressive 17 6/8-inch inside spread and lots of mass that makes it one of Pierce County’s best bucks of all time.

Pierce County Best Bucks Of All-Time