Hunter: Sue Freeman
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Dougherty
Season: 2024-2025
Hunt Story
Have gotten frequent pictures of my deer “Shazam” throughout the season. Encountered him two times from same stand but was just out of range once and second time was too dark to see crosshairs well enough for ethical shot. Had been mainly nocturnal with trail cam pictures for the last month but started getting some daylight pictures. This evening, 12-10-24 I got on the stand by 4:15. I saw a four point, 3 does, 2 yearlings that came out to my food plot and fed from about 5:10-5:35. The four point was the first to get there and last to leave. Watched him work a scrape and licking branch at south end of food plot before he left around 5:35. Everything went quiet except for strong winds and slightly swaying stand and had about given up on seeing anything else when Shazam stepped out about 5:50 at south end of food plot 65 yards away and started easing slowly and warily towards me. He walked to within 40-45 yds but was straight on. It took a couple minutes for him to quarter towards me at about 75% broadside by 5:53 when I could just see my crosshairs well enough to put it on him. I shot around 5:53 and heard my arrow hit and saw his knees buckle. After I shot it took me a minute of the shakes before I texted my husband Greg at 5:54, “I hit him," before he replied “Shazam?" And I said yeah- at this point I was only hunting him and 1-2 others we had classified “shooters." After about 10 minutes I got down to see if I had blood on my arrow. At first I couldn’t find my arrow- he had run about 10-15 yds with the arrow in him until he entered the thicket by the food plot. I saw blood and obvious blood trail and texted my husband that it was a good hit. He came about 30 minutes after my shot and we entered the thicket earlier than we usually would with an archery shot because rain was supposed to be coming in the next 1-2 hours. Blood trail was easy to follow and I walked right up on him about 35 yds into thicket. We high fives and we whooped a little before we took pictures and dragged him out! The third sighting was definitely the charm and patience and multiple sits finally paid off where God blessed me with the opportunity to harvest my #1 target buck!
