Truck-Buck 2019-20: Week 11 Winner, David Wall

Week 11: David Wall, 183 6/8 non-typical
County: Cook      Date: Nov. 28

Last November, David Wall took the week of Thanksgiving off of work to get some good time in the deer woods.

“I waited until the early morning of Monday the 25th to go and saw a few does and small bucks at the feeder. Around 7:15, a buck entered the shooting lane and proceeded to walk directly away. I could see the spread was decent, and I caught glimpses of more than four tines on each side as he continued toward the feeder. He stopped at 200 yards and quartered away, giving me a shot.”

David squeezed the trigger, and at the shot the buck turned toward his stand and looped back the way he had come, cutting into an oak thicket on the opposite side of David’s shooting lane.

David Wall, of Adel, got a second chance at this Cook County buck. The 15-pointer netted 183 6/8 non-typical.

“I got down and could not find any blood, so I left and came back after lunch to search again, but concluded that I had missed,” he said.

“Fast forward to Thanksgiving Day. I had my gun in the truck while feeding the cows and decided to shoot it to check and see if the scope had been knocked off. First shot was around 8 inches low at 100 yards. I went and checked the box of cartridges and realized I had loaded my gun with my nephew’s 130-grain ammo instead of my 150-grain. After replacing the ammo and firing a few practice rounds, I knew the gun was still sighted in correctly with the proper ammo.

“By then, it was around 4:30, so I decided to go sit for the last hour of the day. I went back to the same stand where I missed the buck on Monday. I climbed in the stand at 5 p.m., and within a couple of minutes I looked up to see the buck come out of the exact spot I previously saw him, and he was walking directly away from me again. I put the binoculars on him and realized it was the buck I missed Monday morning. This time he turned into the oak thicket at less than 100 yards giving me a broadside shot. This shot was true, and I heard the buck crash less than 100 yards away.

“I gave him a few minutes and followed a good blood trail to him. He had hung his rack between two small trees, and once I got him removed, I was blown away. This was the buck that we had seen on camera for three years, but no one had ever come across during daylight hours. There weren’t even any trail-cam pictures of him during daylight hours.

“I have hunted for 40 years, and this is by far the best buck that I have ever had a chance at. To get two chances at him in four days was unbelievable lucky.”

Trail-cam pics confirmed that his Cook County buck was a Georgia giant.

The buck had 15 total points, with an 11-point main frame and four long abnormal points—three of the non-typical points were longer than 7 inches. It scored best as a non-typical, netting 183 6/8. It’s the new No. 1 non-typical buck of all-time from Cook County, according to GON’s Georgia Deer Records.

David will be shooting in the finals to win a new Silverado pickup truck from long time Truck-Buck sponsor John Megel Chevrolet. He has already won a $1,140 Browning deer rifle 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 a Shoot-Out shirt from Realtree.

GON’s Official All-Time Cook County Buck Rankings