Hunter: Jeremy Doss
Points: 12 (5L, 7R)
County: Lowndes
Season: 2018-2019
Hunt Story
We've been watching this deer for 3 seasons and figured this season would be his year since he was 5.5 years old. After seeing his rack, and body, grow throughout the spring and summer, we definitely knew he was going to be a shooter this year and gave him the name Hambone since his most impressive attribute was the size of his body frame and weight. In the past two seasons he had busted up his rack early on, so we knew and he was an aggressive buck and the sooner we could get him down, the better chance we had for all of his rack being intact. I've been hunting him hard all season and actually had a previous opportunity to take him, but he was moving quick and I could not absolutely confirm it was him, so I had to let him go - my trail camera later confirmed it was him. The stars finally aligned and the wind was out of the east on the coldest morning of the season (Friday, Nov 16). At about 8:15, I caught something that seemed out of place down my long food plot and pulled up my binoculars to see his gray face looking back my way from the edge 180 yards down the plot. I quickly swung into action to get the gun up and set as he immediately began to walk across my long, narrow plot. Once I had my gun up and settled he was almost across the 15-foot wide plot, so I attempted to stop him and had to get real loud on the second attempt when he finally gave me a pause one step from being gone and just long enough to settle the crosshairs on the pocket and squeeze one off. He lunged forward so I knew he was hit, but he didn't hit the dirt... I began questioning if the crosshairs were a touch low when the gun went off after considering my gun has a 2.75" drop at that distance. I waited a long hour before meeting my hunting partner down at the shot location. Fortunately, his tarsals stunk so bad that we didn't even have to look for blood and could immediately smell him 30 yards away. Hambone is another testament to what a deer can become when given 5.5 years to reach their maturity. There was not much to him at all 2 years ago when he was 3 and then last year he began showing some character in his rack but was probably only right at 200 pounds. He amazingly put on 60 pounds and probably 25 inches of rack in between last season and this season and made for a truly world-class whitetail.
