Hunter: Charlie Mathis
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Taylor
Season: 2024-2025
Hunt Story
Charlie picked this buck out this summer. We named him "Hollywood". He stayed on us all summer and most of the early part of bow season, but he wound up getting far less regular on our place. I know several neighbors that had him on camera. I wound up finishing up the chases I had going on, and then it became Charlie's turn. We had a blind on a platform that I had set up to bow hunt out of in the place where this buck always was. We moved the blind back to make the shot a little longer so that we wouldn't spook any of the deer. It didn't work because the first time we hunted it, we saw about 16 deer, and we spooked every single one of them. He actually almost shot a much smaller 8 point that we weren't familiar with. He wound up spooking and running off, and at this point we are very thankful that he did. We came back and moved the blind a little further back the next day, and that evening I saw Hollywood coming towards the food plot while we were hunting. He was just about to walk out when a doe saw Charlie getting on the gun. She blew, and he left. He came back out to eat about ten minutes after we left, so I knew he wasn't spooked that bad. We went out of town for a few days, and we got back on Sunday. I decided I would take care of the blind problem once and for all. Every year we go to a pheasant shoot in South Georgia. They always have some type of raffle. This time it was for a box stand that was donated. Charlie won the stand, and it sat in our front yard for a few weeks because we weren't sure where to put it. We put it at the opposite end of the food plot that we had been hunting, and we said we would hunt Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday each evening from it to give us a chance at this buck. We got skunked Sunday and Monday evening. Tuesday morning, Hollywood came out at 9:30 in the morning and stayed nearly an hour in the food plot. We knew we had a chance that evening. Charlie had gotten behind on some homework, so he spent the first part of the hunt working on that until he dozed off. I sat and waited on Hollywood until he finally poked his head out. I made sure Charlie was awake, and we got him ready to get on the gun. It was a six minute standoff with Hollywood eating and looking up at us every few seconds. He wound up coming out into the plot a little. He never gave Charlie a shot then, but he turned and got broadside, but at the point it looked like he was leaving. Charlie got on the gun, got the scope where he wanted it, and took the shot. We both saw him mule-kick, and we celebrated like crazy. We thought he had smoked him. Our video footage was shaky because the camera and the gun rest were mounted to the stand. Luckily, our Moultrie camera was set on video mode because that morning I wanted to get a video of Hollywood while he was out there. It caught the shot, and we could tell it was low. We looked in the woods a little, but backed out and called Scott Lopez and Zeva. To make a long story short, Scott got there just before 11. We wound up tracking the deer in circles and all over the place in the woods for 3.91 miles. The track ended with Zeva running this buck until he couldn't anymore. We finally had him at 1:14 am. We loaded him up, and I got Charlie up for school the next day to take him out and take pictures with his buck.He even rode to school with us that morning while I waited on the processor to open. This was such an incredible story, and Charlie has no idea how blessed he has been to take a buck like this at his age. The whole story will be on my GON blog, and the episode will be on youtube Out There Outdoors. God bless and thank you!
