Hunter: Ed Tucker
Points: 10 (5L, 5R)
County: Colquitt
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
My hunt was on Sunday, Dec. 6. It was not a very long hunt, but it was exciting and special. It was special for me because I was hunting on my own property, and I was fortunate enough to see and harvest a mature buck that I had been getting pictures of all year. I was hunting in a hardwood creek bottom, and I got to my stand that morning about 30 minutes later than I usually do. It was 7 a.m. on the dot when I settled into my stand. After about 20 minutes or 30 minutes had passed, I heard a rifle shot a good way soft in the distance, and I remember thinking maybe someone just got a big buck and how nice it would be if I could do the same. About 10 more minutes went by, and I startling hearing water being splashed around in the creek nearby. My first thought was that it was some of the wood ducks that I had seen in the creek earlier. I started scanning the bits and pieces of the creek water that I could see, and I saw a doe and her two yearlings that were playing around, going in and out of the water. The doe came across the creek about 40 yards down from me and started feeding her way away from me, and the two yearling followed her. They had been out of my site for maybe 5 minutes, and of a sudden the woods just came alive with deer running back and forth in the direction that the doe and yearlings had gone. The two deer that I could see running back and forth were making their way toward me, and I could tell that one of the deer had a big body. Then as they got closer, I started seeing antlers, and I could hear the buck grunting. Both deer would stop running momentarily a couple of different times, and I would see that the buck had a good rack, and I could see that the other deer was a yearling. But the few times they stopped running, I didn't have a good shot at the buck's vitals. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the buck stopped behind a big oak tree at an angle to me, and once again there was not a shot from his shoulder back. But I had a clear view of his neck, and I knew I had to take the shot. After the shot, he spun around and started trotting to my left like he wasn't hit. He went about 35 yards and stopped broadside behind some brushy privet. Scared that I has missed with the first shot, I quickly placed the crosshairs behind his front shoulder and squeezed off another shot, and he fell like a ton of bricks. As soon as I walked up to the buck, I saw one of his G2s was pointy toward his back at the top of the antler, and I instantly recognized him as one of the mature bucks I had been getting trail-camera pictures of all year. After admiring him for a short while, and giving thanks to God for all his blessings, I started wondering about the first shot I took. I looked behind the deer toward the big oak tree where the buck was standing when I made the first shot, and I could clearly see the blood trail all the way to the big oak, and I was relieved that my first shot didn't miss it's mark after all.
