Truck-Buck 2019-20: Week 4 Winner, Kayla Pitts

Week 4: Kayla Pitts, 167 1/8 non-typical
County: Houston
Date: Oct. 11

GON has been around quite a while, long enough there’s lots of history in these pages. Take Kayla Pitts for example. She’s now 30, but many GON people still remember the August 2009 Truck-Buck Shoot-Out when a 19-year-old Kayla all but won a truck, taking the eventual winner Pete Mincey to a record-setting five heads-up rounds after everyone else was eliminated. Kayla did win a 4-wheeler that year. And now she is back in the Shoot-Out.

Week 4: Kayla Pitts, of Macon, with her incredible 16-point buck from Houston County. It scored best as a non-typical, netting 167 1/8.

“We had the buck on camera in late August, but he disappeared for four weeks,” said Kayla about her monster Houston County buck.

The buck showed back up during the fourth week of bow season. The final day of that week, Friday, Oct. 11, Kayla went for a morning hunt with her compound bow.

“I got to the stand at 5:30 because we knew he was coming in before daylight. My dad blew him out from under the stand just two days prior while walking to his stand,” Kayla said. “I sat and waited for what seemed like forever in the dark. I watched two small bucks sparring in front of me for 20 minutes as daylight was breaking. After they were finished playing, I heard a deer coming. I looked to my right and saw the giant 20 yards from my stand heading to me. A yearling was following and spooked, running the other smaller bucks from under my stand.

“The giant walked about 7 yards from my stand and passed by me. As he reached about 10 to 12 yards to my left, he turned to cut back toward me. I was able to draw back and shoot him broadsided slightly angling away. The deer jumped, and I knew he was hit. He ran about 60 yards away and turned into a thick strip of oaks, and I heard him crash.

“I called my dad to tell him the news. We waited about an hour before looking for him. As we searched where I had last seen him and heard him crash, we found no blood, not one speck. We called a buddy who tracks, and he brought his dog. We put the dog on the trail where we assumed the deer went. She scurried around smelling and turned back the opposite way to go in some thick pines. Again, assuming the deer went the other way, we got the dog back on track and searched the woods for about 300 yards. No sign of him anywhere. Disgusted, we headed back toward the stand to look one last time for blood. The dog again went to the pines the opposite way. The tracker let her go a bit and noticed she seemed bayed up about 50 yards away. We snuck into the thick pines and not 125 yards from where he was shot laid the buck. There was no blood found at all. We are assuming the loud crash was him hitting a fence as he ran away, and that he turned and ran back the other way without me seeing him. A complete 180-degree of emotions as I thought for sure I had made a bad shot and would never see him again.”

Kayla’s buck netted 167 1/8 non-typical. In GON’s official Deer Records, Kayla now has the No. 4 bow-buck of all-time from Houston County, and it’s the No. 1 non-typical bow-buck ever recorded from Houston.

Kayla will be shooting in the finals to win a new Silverado pickup truck from long-time Truck-Buck sponsor John Megel Chevrolet. She has already won $1,100 Mathews bows and a prize package which includes Antler Addict Mineral and 4S Draw from 4S Advanced Wildlife Solutions, a safety harness from Hunter Safety System and Shoot-Out shirts from Realtree.

GON’s Official Houston County Bow Buck Rankings