Hunter: Gordon McFarland
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Hancock
Season: 2017-2018
Hunt Story
I hunted in Hancock County in a box stand we call the Hilton Friday morning Oct 27th. Neither my son or I had hunted it for the last two years. The stand is surrounded by a clearcut and overlooks a food plot that we just put in. The food plot is bordered by a pine drain on the left and a creek bottom, and then by the clearcut on right and on back. About 9 a.m. I saw a buck just inside trees in the pine drain at bottom left of the food plot. The buck stayed in the trees, and I could not tell if he was a shooter or not. He would not come out in the food plot but moved up the drain just inside the pines. I tried a grunt call, but he stayed in the pines. He finally disappeared into the pine drain. About 9:15 he came out in the clearcut to my left at about 75 yards. He was facing me and I saw he was a shooter, a wide 8-pointer. Finally he turned to show me his shoulder enough for a shot. He dropped in his tracks from my Ruger Scout with a Winchester Super X 150 grain round. The neat thing was that when we checked our trail cameras, after we took him back to camp to field dress and put him in the cooler, we saw he was on two cameras that morning just after midnight. We had not had him on camera since the summer. It was a great day in the woods with my son. My son had already tagged out, so he drove me to the stand in his hunting golf cart then went and sat in it in another part of the clearcut to watch for deer and relax while I hunted. Then he came and got me and the buck for a ride out of the woods. Nothing like being chauffeured around while you hunt!
