Hunter: Taylor Mathis
Points: 8 (4L, 4R)
County: Taylor
Season: 2022-2023
Hunt Story
This was definitely the craziest hunt that I’ve ever been a part of. We’ve had only a few pictures of this buck that we named “Hank” over the last couple of years. He’s always just been passing through and before this year he never gave us any daylight pictures. He showed up at the beginning of November, and started to get really regular around November 10. He was in daylight morning and evening on that day. My wife, Taylor, has gotten back into hunting the past couple of years and I’ve filmed some really good hunts of hers for our YouTube channel. On November 12 while looking at some pictures she decided that she would love to try to hunt “Hank.” We had planned on going Sunday, November 13, but I had a deacons meeting that afternoon at 4. Of course at 4:25 my phone alerts me and he was in our food plot for 25 minutes after that. I was crushed, but I talked her into going the next day on November 14. We got there around 4 and while filming the opening interview of the hunt she tells me a deer is walking in front of us and sure enough at 4:19 there’s “Hank” Walking the exact opposite way that we want him to. We couldn’t get the camera and gun situated to shoot him and he never really stopped, so we sat it out. At 5:50 we see him and he had completely circled the property. After we had swapped windows in the blind 3 times, broken a chair while swapping chairs, and making all kinds of noise “Hank” wound up in the food plot where we wanted him to be from the beginning. My wife made a perfect shot she thought and I thought she missed because I was watching the wrong buck. I got her to shoot the buck I was looking at. We got to him and he was the wrong buck and we were about to leave brokenhearted. As we were walking out, I said “what if you didn’t miss the first one?” We walked to the wood line where he ran in and he didn’t make it 30 yards. What an awesome hunt together after all is said and done. Things don’t always go exactly how we think they will, but God is so good to us. This hunt is live on our YouTube channel Out There Outdoors.
