Hunter: Kaylee Owen
Points: 12 (6L, 6R)
County: Wheeler
Season: 2022-2023
Hunt Story
On Saturday night I sat at a stand we call middle gate with my dad where there are two roads that you can see from the box stand, one looks over a narrow food plot and the other through some small planted pines that ends at a creek bottom to the left. We had a doe come out early and feed on the food plot and another doe a little later come in and out of the planted pines. Almost an hour later, the doe straight ahead was run off by a small 6-point that came out between me and her. So afterwards we naturally started watching the doe on the left became it was the only action we had going and it was just getting to 7 pm. All of a sudden she locked on something straight back in the creek bottom and my dad told me to get the gun up. He knew it was a good buck but didn't know it was the big deer we call "Buck Nasty." He was facing us and was completely locked into the doe. It felt like forever until he finally turned broadside. My dad couldn't see well out of the stand because he was sitting in a small kids' camp chair since we couldn't fit a large one in this stand, so it was up to me to determine the best time to shoot. My dad told me to take the shot once he turns. He was at about 80 yards, turned, I brought my gun up and was able to squeeze the trigger. I wasn't sure I hit the deer and my heart was racing. After just a few short minutes we climbed down to check for blood where he stood and found it, I was so excited that we found blood and knew we had to give a little while before we looked for him. Everyone came to help us. We had a good blood trail but it dried up for a few yards, at this time we heard some noise coming from out right so we started looking more in that direction worrying he wasn't dead. My younger sister and mom stayed behind still looking for more blood. My younger sister found blood in the opposite direction so we immediately started looking there. Within five minutes we found the deer and the first person to find it was my daddy's friend Mr. Ben, and he yelled "It's the big one." My dad went crazy and everyone was so excited. We are trying to get a hold of someone now to officially score my deer. My dad said it may be big enough to be in the top 5 all-time in Wheeler County!
