Stacy’s Opening Morning Tift County 15-Point Buck

This Tift County buck has 15 scorable points and has been green scored at 176 total inches and with a net non-typical score in the high 160s. Stacy Black, of Ty Ty, shot the buck opening morning of gun season, Oct. 19, 2024. The thermal drone in the picture is owned by J.D. Sledge, who helped find and recover the buck later that morning. Turns out, the buck only went about 30 yards into some thick longleaf pines, but Stacy didn’t want to take any chances, so she enlisted J.D.’s help.

Stacy Black is by no means your average Georgia hunter. The retired schoolteacher is 54 and hunts her Tift County farm by herself. She plants dozens of food plots by herself. She hangs cameras all over the property by herself. She manages her pecan orchard by herself. And, oh yeah, she has just taken a buck bigger than most men in Georgia will ever take.

Stacy says deer hunting is in her blood. She started tagging along on deer hunting outings with her dad when she was just a child. At age 18, she took the Hunter Safety Course and got her license.

“I’ve been deer hunting all my life,” she said. “I hunted with my father. My ex-husband— the father of my children—was a deer hunter and we hunted together. I still hunt, and I still love it.”

Her years of hunting and the toils of making her property better for wildlife paid off on the opening morning of gun season, Oct. 19, 2024.

“I had been getting this buck on my cameras for several months, but it only came out at night,” the Ty Ty resident said. “On opening morning, I got in my stand early, and about 7:03 he showed up on my phone at another location. It was the first time I had ever seen him in the daylight. I thought that he was finally getting bold.

“Ten minutes later, I saw him on a path coming toward me. He wasn’t stopping for anything. He was a man on a mission. I got my .270 up and got him in the scope. I put the crosshairs on his shoulder and I shot.”

To her surprise, the buck didn’t fall.

“He hobbled off into a stand of longleaf pines,” she said. “It is so thick in there you can’t see. I sat there for 30 minutes trying to figure out what to do. I was afraid to go in there in case he was wounded and would get further away. I went home, drank some coffee and ate some breakfast.”

Stacy decided to call J.D. Sledge, who lives in the area and who has a thermal drone to help hunters track wounded deer.

“He got here about 10:30, 10:45ish and put the drone up, and he found my deer in 45 seconds,” she said. “He had only run about 30 yards before he died.”

Stacy Black with her Tift County 15-point buck taken on opening morning of Georgia’s 2024 firearms season.

Once at the buck’s side, Stacy was shocked. She had thought it was a 12-point from trail-camera photos, but now she counted 16 points. Turns out, one point is just under an inch long, so it’s not considered a scorable point. The number of points wasn’t her only shock—she was beside the largest-bodied buck she had ever seen.

“Photos are deceptive,” she said. “I knew it was a big buck, but not that big. At the taxidermist, it weighed 245 pounds. It was like a moose.”

The taxidermist, Jesse Tillman, rough-scored the buck as a non-typical. The buck had a 17-inch inside spread and G3s that were each more than 10 inches. They came up with a gross score just over 176 3/8 and a net score of around 168.

Stacy plans to get an official score after the 60-day drying period. She, of course, plans to get the buck mounted.

She was disappointed to learn that she would not be eligible for the Truck-Buck Shoot-Out because she was not a subscriber to GON when she killed the buck (she is now). Stacy has a new goal, however.

“I was looking at the list of the top 10 bucks in Tift County,” she said. “They were all taken by men. I think it’s time a woman is on there.”

Tift County Top-10 Bucks Of All-Time

91 Bucks Listed In Tift County’s All-time Records