12-Point Buck Shatters Tift County Bowhunting Record

Yeah… nets are for fishing, but when it comes to official scores for bucks, net scores are how they’re recorded. It is what it is. A Tift County bow-buck was one of those that got creamed by the scoring system, but it still came out on top as a new county record.

Brad Hamm killed the buck with his bow this season on Nov. 21. The official scorer came up with 169 4/8 total inches. The 7×5 rack included two abnormal points totaling 8 inches—enough to hurt a typical score but not enough abnormal inches to make the rack score better as a non-typical (more on that below). And with a typical net score of 151 3/8, Brad’s buck still stands far away as the new No. 1 bow-buck for Tift County.

Brad Hamm’s Tift County 12-point buck netted 151 3/8 typical to set a new county bowhunting record.

“The story began two years ago when my good friend and lifelong hunting partner Jeff Dixon and I started getting pictures of this deer on camera,” said Brad. “This began our bowhunting quest to harvest such a magnificent animal. Several close encounters with him but just couldn’t make it happen. In the afternoon of Nov. 21, 2020, the good Lord blessed me.

“It was a hot afternoon and mosquitos were terrible. Jeff and I were hunting maybe 500 yards apart and with very little confidence of seeing the buck because of the heat. Much to our surprise, the big deer we were after came out on the food plot Jeff was hunting, but the buck never presented a shot. Still with plenty of shooting light left, the deer made his way in my direction,” Brad said.

“I was watching a small buck in my plot when he became very nervous. I thought maybe he was getting my wind. He tucked his tail and eased off in the pines. He knew something bigger was in the area, I guess. I happened to look over my right shoulder, and there he was walking straight toward my stand—this was about to get intense because he was straight downwind.

“He got about 20 yards and caught my wind and spun around and ran. I grabbed my bow, spun around, drew, and I practically yelled at him. He slammed on the brakes and just stared at me in the tree. At full draw I guessed the yardage and let it eat. I figured he was between 35 and 40 yards. He watched the arrow hit him it seemed like. At first, I thought I made a bad shot because it looked like I hit him dead in the shoulder, and seeing him run off with arrow sticking out. But he only ran about 100 yards when I heard him crash. It sounded like he got up and crashed again. I knew he was done. I called Jeff and said Big Boy is dead, and he could not believe it. We really didn’t know how big he was until we found him. Trail-cam pics had us fooled, he looked big but not this big!”

The buck is a main-frame 5×5 with two abnormal points coming off the right side, making him a 12-point. The abnormal tines total 8 inches. Typical racks and non-typical racks are scored exactly the same—the difference is how abnormal inches are handled in the math. For a typical score, those 8 inches on Brad’s buck are straight deductions, and his net typical score is 151 3/8. For a non-typical score, those 8 inches are added back in. Brad’s non-typical score is 167 3/8. To determine which score is ‘better,’ you divide the net scores by the B&C minimums for the all-time record book—170 for typical and 195 for non-typical. So Brad’s typical net score of 151 3/8 divided by 170 comes up at 89.04%. As a non-typical, the rack’s score of 167 3/8 divided by 195 comes up at 85.83%. So the typical score is better.

“I have bowhunted deer across the Midwest and Georgia, but there is nothing like killing your biggest buck right here at home,” Brad said.

Tift County All-Time Best Bow-Bucks