Hunter: Kayla Pitts
Points: 16 (7L, 9R)
County: Houston
Season: 2019-2020
Hunt Story
We had the buck on camera in late August but he disappeared for four weeks. This past week he showed up again. 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. 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 10-12 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 spec. We called a buddy that 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 towards 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 layed 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° of emotions as I thought for sure I had made a bad shot and would never see him again.
