Here’s another one from the Big Deer archives:
I was filming a hunt in November 2008 down in Georgia. One day at lunchtime the guy who had killed the highest-scoring buck ever in the Peach State agreed to meet me on the side of a red dirt road and tell me how he did it.
Billy Joe Padgett roared up in his pickup, the monster mount riding shotgun. “Let’s make this quick,” Billy Joe said, “I gotta get back on my deer stand.”
Telfair County, November 1998, the day before Thanksgiving. Billy Joe’s dad was hunting his favorite stand on a lease and heard some grunting, but he couldn’t see the buck for a shot. The elder Padgett decided to go dove hunting the next day. Billy Joe, 23 at the time, told his dad he’d hunt that stand. Both Padgetts had seen a giant in the area, but never within shooting range.
A little after 7:00, on Thanksgiving morning, the enormous buck popped out of a creek bottom 60 yards from Billy Joe’s stand. Somehow he kept it together, raised his gun and fired. “I jumped out of the stand, hollering I just shot a moose!” Billy Joe recalls.
Amazing rack. It’s a typical frame with kickers, stickers, double brow tines (38 points) and unreal mass all over. Hellacious buck anywhere, and one you might expect from Iowa, Illinois or Canada. That the freak buck lived 4 or 5 years on a heavily hunted lease in Georgia is fantastic and makes the story all the better.
The mount Billy Joe showed me that day was a replica. The original hangs in the Cedar Lane Supper Club in McRae, GA and has become a sort of hunting monument. A lot of people stop in to see the biggest buck ever shot in the state. Check it out if you’re in the area. They cook a mean a steak too.
Made a lot of news back in ’98. I didn’t remember the year, but I did the deer. We’ve got a mix of michigan, Tenn. and other gene pools in GA and the mix varies with location where they were restocked during the late 50’s and 60’s. Many stories associated with the program and I’ve related a few in the past. 3 mos till bow opener.