Hunter: Landon Osterholt
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Chattahoochee
Season: 2017-2018
Hunt Story
The pressure was on when we looked at the camera cards Friday night. There was absolutely nothing good till the last card and that got the whole camp excited, there was a new buck on the cards. Everyone was up and going an hour before usual, no one was losing a lifetime opportunity. We all were in the stand at 6:30 in the morning. While walking to our stand my dad and I startled a young doe. Around 8:15 was when everyone felt like they were going to cry because they heard a gunshot come from me. They were relieved when all I shot was a coyote, but it was extremely exciting for me because I had just shot my first coyote! I couldn't get another bullet chambered before a young buck walked out and he brought a girlfriend with him. So now we had live buck bait. They stayed for what seemed like forever and they always kept looking to their left. I thought they were looking at my Dad's chair he had set out during bow season, but my dad had some doubts. They looked one more time in that direction and then they ran away. I really wanted to get down and go see my coyote. We packed up as soon as the deer were out of sight. We stood up and were about 2 seconds away from walking out the door, and my dad looked one last time into the clearcut before we got down. That's when he saw the biggest buck I've ever seen! We immediately got our guns up and it was staring straight at us. The only thing keeping me from shooting it was it would not turn broadside. It took what felt like an hour but it was really 5 minutes. He finally turned broadside, but almost turned too far. He was about to bolt and my dad said shoot shoot shoot. I waited for the perfect shot and it hit him hard. It looked like he jumped about 5 feet and then he started running. His front right leg was plowing the ground and it seemed like it dropped behind a brush pile. We had our usual celebration in the stand and we starting getting text messages like crazy from everyone at our hunting camp. Devastation was all over the camp, everyone was hunting for that buck. The coyote was closer so we looked for it first. It was pouring blood and we easily found it in a few seconds. We then started to look for the deer. At first it was horrible because when we got to the brush pile it was nowhere to be seen. We kept looking till we got to the edge of the woods and when we saw there was no blood we stopped. We did not want to go any further to mess up the scent of the deer because we are going to call tracking dogs. We called A.J. Niette, he is the best tracker we have ever used. I recommend him strongly. We were his first call of the day and he got to our land about 11. Once he got the dogs suited up with their collars on we were ready to go to where the deer was last standing. The dogs went to where the deer was last standing, it turned out that the deer went straight and when he got behind the brush pile he took a sharp left into the woods. When the deer got about 30 feet into the woods he started pouring blood and after that he did not go very far. He only made it about 40 more yards and then there he was! He was huge as ever! He was bigger than any 8-pointer that my dad ever shot and they were giant. I was shaking so hard it looked like I was being electrocuted. It was the biggest deer I've ever shot, it will probably be for a while. Everyone was so relieved when they figured out it wasn't the deer they were looking for, so they still had something to look forward to, but it was just as big as my deer and my deer might even be bigger. We loaded him up and headed to camp. I got lots of high-fives and congratulations from all the other hunters at camp. We then headed to the processor and he weighed 182 pounds. Thanks to AJ for helping me find my deer.
