Hunter: Mike Lane
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Talbot
Season: 2019-2020
Hunt Story
Myself and group of friends made our fourth trip to hunt the Chattahoochee Fall Line WMA - Almo tract after being selected. The temperatures had dropped drastically and with a front coming in, we were expecting good deer movement. We saw a lot of deer movement that morning and I tagged a 100 pound doe. We were back in our tree stands early that afternoon as several of us had witnessed chasing activity with young bucks on the morning hunt. A little after 4:00 PM, I heard a grunt directly behind me. I slowly eased up in my climber and spun around hoping to see the buck. Once I had turned in my stand, I heard the grunt again and it seemed to be farther to my right. I grabbed my grunt call and let out a series of grunts. I heard him grunt again and immediately fired back with a series of grunts of my own. Of course, I was skeptical because I have never had any luck grunting in a buck. I have always heard the stories but it never has worked for me. To my surprise, I heard another grunt and this time it seemed closer. I then noticed a deer with a large rack trotting in. I looked ahead of the deer and found an opening. As the deer entered the opening, I let out a loud grunt with my mouth, and the deer locked it down and froze. I made an approximate 50 yard neck shot and the deer fell in his tracks. I climbed down out my tree to recover my deer and was shocked when I walked up to him. I knew he was a nice deer but he definitely didn't have "ground shrinkage". He was much larger than I originally thought. The deer was weighed at 180# live weight at the check station. I was tagged out for my WMA hunt and had to sit around camp for two days while my buddies hunted, but you can bet I sure wasn't complaining.
