Hunter: Jay Davidson
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Troup
Season: 2021-2022
Hunt Story
Last Thursday I took a climber to the same spot where we know several shooters show up fairly consistently around sunset. I watched this deer eat acorns for about 15 minutes and then crossed the field at 70 yards. I almost got a shot at him later that night but got busted by the doe in front of him. Though she ran, he stayed around but never gave me a shot and even got into a huge fight with a slightly smaller and younger buck. Yesterday I went to the same tree and got in there real early, around 2 pm. I knew I was going to sweat regardless of what the temp was so I wanted to give it enough time to cool me off and not get busted again. I hung up 2 golden estrus scent tags, one over a scrape and one up in the tree with me when I got set up. Saw two long beards early, 5 raccoons in the Persimmon tree around 4 pm, and a tall spike came into spitting range at 5 pm. Shortly after 5 pm, the wind died down and the temp dropped a few degrees. I reapplied my cover scent and dipped the scent tag that was in my tree again. At 6 pm an old cull 10-point rubbed and scraped on the edge of the clearing before moving through, he came within 25 yards and I almost shot him but I knew that he usually had one of our good shooters with him. Several minutes later I heard loud and heavy deer movement on the terrace below me, and at 6:14 this guy came out. I didn’t even put binoculars on him, I instantly knew he was a shooter, tall tines, wider than his ears and a very mature body. I actually thought he was one of the other bucks that we’ve had on camera with a slightly smaller rack. He was already 40 yards out and moving away from me. When I lifted my bow to draw, he looked directly at me, as soon as he looked back down I drew and didn’t hesitate to put my 40-yard pin a tad high on him and released. Absolutely smoked him. He did the old mule kick and I knew he was a dead deer. Biggest deer of my life. This is my 6th season of hunting nearly exclusively with a bow and this is my first archery buck.
