Hunter: Brodie Sheppard
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Tift
Season: 2018-2019
Hunt Story
Went to visit the family and do some hunting. Shortly after arriving, a family friend called and said he had a new spot that he wanted my son to hunt. Said he's been getting a lot of trail-cam pics of a big heavy 10-point. The deer has been showing up only at night, and some of the neighboring farmers have been getting pics of this deer as well. It seemed to me that this deer must of been a big one after all the talking around the farms. After hearing about the deer and that multiple people were hunting it, I decided we gotta give it a shot. Wednesday morning was our first morning to hunt. We woke up a little late that morning, so we got dressed and rushed to the stand. I knew the rut phase was kicking off in this area, so I sprayed the area down with doe estrus and made a mock scrape as we were walking to the stand. Once we got in the tree and got situated, it started cracking daylight. I grabbed my grunt call and grunted 4 or 5 times pretty aggressively and then laid it back in my lap. Within 5 minutes of me grunting, the deer of a lifetime came running out of the woods bowed up and ready to fight. The deer came straight toward us and stopped at 40 yards. Me and my son were shaking too bad to focus. He put his gun on the shooting rail and looked thru the scope. Once he had the deer in his sights, he said "Dad the gun is shaking too much I can't stay steady." Well that was because I was shaking so bad that the whole stand was shaking. So finally after I calm myself down, it was time to seal the deal. He looked thru the scope again and finally said the magic words "I'M ON 'EM"!!! And I said take deep breath and squeeze the trigger. He pulled the trigger, and it was a great hit dead in the shoulder. The deer fell and tried to get up and he just pushed his front end for 30 yards or so while flipping end over end multiple times. We watched him fall for the last time 80 yards from the stand. We couldn't get out of the tree right away because were too shook up to climb down. Once we were able to get down and put our hands on this deer, we quickly realized this was a true stud. This is gonna be a moment we will never forget.
