Hunter: Clae Mathis
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Taylor
Season: 2018-2019
Hunt Story
This year I have been taking my son hunting with me for the first time. This was his fourth hunt, and we had seen a lot of deer every time we hunted, but we had not shot anything yet. He was really on me about shooting one this time. We got there about 3:00, and we saw a doe not long after sitting, but he couldn't stop coughing, and I thought that maybe his coughing would keep us from seeing a lot of deer. At around 4:45 deer started pouring out of the woods in front of us. Six does followed by four different bucks. When this buck came out, he ran all of the deer off. He had done this in front of me all season. Every time I saw this buck this year he was a long way off, and he has been missed on another occasion by a different hunter, but this time he was only about 120 yards. I took a minute to look at him, and then shot him. He dropped right there, and my son was extremely excited. It was awesome to see him light up after we shot this buck. We knew this buck was old, but not as old as he turned out to be. His jawbone showed that he was at least 6.5 years old, and possibly older. His rack just never grew very well, and he also is smaller now than he was the past couple of years. The real work began after the shot, as it had been raining for days before this hunt. We wound up getting stuck after loading the deer into the back of the truck. It took two tractors to get us out, but left us with a great story to tell for a long time.
