Hunter: Sydney Sanders
Points: 7 (3L, 4R)
County: Mitchell
Season: 2020-2021
Hunt Story
We got to the stand a little before 4 PM. We saw 11 turkeys in a firebreak feeding. They fed for about 5 minutes and moved onto another fire break out of sight. About 10 minutes later, they filtered back in and this time there was 14 of them. They moved into the woods, and about 10 minutes later two does came out in front of us. We sat and watched them for about 30 minutes feeding up a firebreak. This is only the second year my daughter has hunted, so we were whispering about the deer and what they were doing. I was telling her about some of their habits and tendencies when one of them started looking off into the woods. We had a decent 8 on camera, but he had broken his G-3 tine on one side. You could tell it was this fall by the pictures. I had asked Sydney if we saw him did she want to shoot him or let him walk and see if he made it another year. At any rate, this doe kept looking into the woods for about 5 minutes. Just a little after 5 PM, we saw this buck step out. The only issue was he was on the other side of these two does. We couldn’t tell if this was the broken rack, so I took Sydney’s Ruger .243 with a Vortec 4x12-44 scope and looked at this buck. I whispered to her, “That isn’t the broken rack, he’s a shooter.” I handed the gun back to her and told her to get ready. By this time, one of the does was facing us, perked up, staring us down. We waited what seemed like forever, and probably even longer to a 15 year old. Finally the does stepped to the right, and the buck stepped to the left. She lined him up and squeezed off a 90 grain bullet in his direction. He jumped and ran into the woods, and I heard him crash down. Blood trail was very short and very easy to follow. When we got to him, we saw his main beam was broken while in velvet just past his last tine on the left. We drug him out and headed to Clayhill Processor in Parrott, Ga.
