Hunter: Rocky Mountain
Points: 9 (5L, 4R)
County: Clay
Season: 2015-2016
Hunt Story
Having killed my biggest and my most special deer on November 22, 2015, I was not at all expecting to better that one, especially this season on my 55 acres. I wanted to go hunting after a wet cold front moved through the area. I woke up and went out the backdoor to the stand I took my "special deer" two weeks before. There was a lot of scrapes around the oat food plot. My wife was preparing to leave for the Atlanta airport, loading her SUV about 150 yards from my stand. I didn't hear her at all. At 7:20 a.m., I thought I saw movement in behind a clump of small oak tree trunks. I didn't see anything for 2 to 3 minutes, then it moved and out walked a real big and wide 9-point. He was extremely nervous about something. I didn't know if it was my wife's doings, a doe that eased into the food plot or he had spotted me moving in my stand, but he was cautious. For whatever reason he moved out turning and stepping toward my tree stand. He stopped and rubbed a 6-inch diameter oak, pawed the dirt, made a new scrape and marked it with his scent. He took three steps and looked straight up at me, and I froze when he stopped to check me out. I don't know what he thought, but he was uncomfortable. He turned 135 degrees to his right and started walking away. A branch was in my view at that point, but he stopped in the clear after taking 10 or so steps. I shot him as he was quartering away, and he took off down the hill. I ejected my first shell and chambered another one. He was running through the woods making a racket, and I then heard him crash. He had run into a tangle of vines and it "clothes-lined" him. It only took me 15 minutes to find him. What a trophy! My wife hadn't left for the airport yet, so I called her to come see him. As she was ready to go she came, saw and said she had to get moving so I was on my own. I tried dragging him up to an opening but I am too old and he was too big. There was no way to get a 4-wheeler in there either. So I called my neighbor Patrick Shivers, and he gladly came over to help me move and load him. He also got some photos for me. I can't thank him enough as he also helped with the food plots days after my daughter's passing. I took the 9-point to the processors and weighed him out to 217 pounds. What a roller coaster ride of emotions over the last two months.
