Son Hopes For A Miracle In Finding His Dad’s Georgia Deer Mount

Dennis Yarbrough killed this Troup County buck Nov. 19, 1970. A local newspaper said the 16-pointer weighed 250 pounds field-dressed. The newspaper also said the buck was the biggest reported kill in Troup County since deer hunting opened there three years earlier. Dennis passed away in 2017, but his son, Kevin, is hoping by some miracle he can find the mounted deer.

By Kevin Yarbrough

Like many of us, I grew up hunting and fishing with my dad and granddad. My dad was a life-long deer hunter. He killed many big bucks, but his biggest was a huge buck in Troup County on Nov. 19, 1970. I wasn’t born until 1978, but ironically, I invited my dad to go hunting with me on a property that a friend of the family was leasing back in the 1990s. Turns out, this was exactly the same property where he had killed this buck. Dad was an old timer, who never cared much about scoring a deer, but he loved hunting big mature bucks. This buck hung on the wall in our living room my entire childhood, and we always joked around about how long it was going to take me to kill one bigger. I still haven’t and probably never will.

Dad passed  away in 2017 from Alzheimer’s. While dealing with this disease, he made some decisions that he normally wouldn’t have made. One of those was selling his buck on eBay. He told me several times afterward that he regretted selling it and not passing it down to me. I found some pictures of the deer the other day while going through some of his old belongings. I also found the article where the local newspaper did a story on it.

I remember Dad telling me that he sold it on eBay for $500 and the buyer was in New York. I did a Google search and actually found Dad’s deer on a website listing called WorthPoint. The listing shows the sale date as Dec. 18, 2011 in the amount of $500. Unfortunately, this is the only information I was able to get and I have no buyer information. I contacted eBay and according to them, once an account is inactive for two years, everything gets deleted. According to them, they no longer have any information for the transaction on file.

I know it’s a long shot, but I would love to know where this deer is now, even if I never get it back. I know it’s not possible to score a deer from a picture, but do you have anyone that could give me a ball-park guess as to what it might score? Just a few days ago, I posted a shortened version of this story on a couple New York hunting groups on Facebook. Again, I know it’s a long shot, but thought I’d give it a try.

My hope is that my prayers will be answered, and one day I will find it, but if not, I still have a lifetime of memories of hunting with my dad.