2022 Truck-Buck Shoot-Out Results

If a photo shoot ever involves you getting truck keys from Jonathan Megel, it’s been a good day! Wendell Duncan won the 2022 Shoot-Out and a new truck that he drove home from the Outdoor Blast in Emerson.

Each time a Truck-Buck winner drives out of the Shoot-Out Arena in a brand new pick-up truck it is special. This year’s drive was more than a quarter century in the making. Twenty-seven years to be exact. Wendell Duncan’s road to winning it all began way back at the beginning of the 1994 Georgia deer season. That’s when the first-ever morning of public archery hunting was held at the then brand-new Flint River WMA in Dooly County.

It was great to have a crew from John Megel Chevrolet at the Shoot-Out, including the man himself, John Megel (right), whose partnership with GON began more than 30 years ago and made Truck-Buck possible.

GON was at the check station that morning when Wendell Duncan showed up with an awesome 8-point buck he had taken with his bow. Word began to spread that one of Wendell’s friends had an even bigger buck. Then Larry Nickelson drove up with his giant, a non-typical that netted 177 2/8. Larry won Week 1 of Truck-Buck that season, and then went on to win a new truck in the Shoot-Out the following summer.

This year’s Truck-Buck Shoot-Out had some history. This 1994 photo shows 2022 winner Wendell Duncan (left) and 1995 Shoot-Out winner Larry Nickelson with the bucks they killed the first morning of the first archery hunt at Flint River WMA in September of 1994. Larry’s buck won Week 1 that season, and then he won the truck in the Truck-Buck Shoot-Out.

Flash forward to the 2021-2022 deer season. Wendell Duncan has been hunting a Macon County tract for years, and he is still close friends with many of the same group who were on the ’94 Flint River WMA trip. 

During the last week of last deer season, Wendell shot a 10-point buck that netted 145 even to win the Week 17 scoring period of Truck-Buck. Winning a week earned Wendell a new Savage rifle, an HSS safety harness, several bags of product from 4S Wildlife Solutions and a Shoot-Out shirt from Realtree. 

And GON inexplicably put the name “Wilson” on the back of Wendell’s Shoot-Out shirt instead of “Duncan.” We’re getting Wendell a shirt with the correct name, but for the Shoot-Out he wore the Wilson shirt… and now he has a new nickname! 

Wilson must be good luck.

Wendell hit the egg at 30 feet to outlast Week 3 winner Adam Lomax and Week 9 winner Cory Croft, who had both just missed the egg at 30 feet. Wendell won the truck, and then Adam and Cory shot it out for the second grand prize, a Firminator from Ranew’s Outdoor Equipment. Adam busted the egg on his third shot from 30 feet, earning the Firminator.

Another year of Truck-Buck begins Sept. 10 with opening day. Click here for information.

Adam Lomax made the Shoot-Out by winning Week 3 with last season’s best typical bow-buck killed in Georgia. He won a Firminator by placing second in the Shoot-Out.

Three of the last season’s four weekly winners from archery season with their new Mathews V3X bows (L-R) George Law, Cam Williams and Adam Lomax.

Holden Hines, 15, won last year’s Youth Big-Buck Contest Shoot-Out. This year Holden was in Truck-Buck and won a CVA Paramount rifle as part of his Week 5 prize package.