Bubba Waddell, great nephew of Edwin Waddell, along with our cousin Brantley Lavin were recently bow hunting on some nearby property. There was a mature cull buck that had been hunted by both Bubba and Brantley, but they never got within bow range on him. However, on the morning of Dec. 28th, Bubba choose to hunt with his Thompson Center rifle and he put the smack down on that mature buck. What a great way to end the year!

It’s never too late to kill a good buck. The deer have been rutting hard and are now looking for food; they are coming into the late planted and tender food plots to feed.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, Philip Culpepper, one of the cameramen for Realtree Roadtrips and I teamed up in Booger Bottom hoping for that big kill. We saw deer, but not the one we were hoping for.

Michael and I had put out our Bushnell trail cameras and had been getting a lot of pictures of deer, but this one big 8 pointer caught my eye. We kept the camera set up in the food plot and continued getting pictures of the deer. I was feeling confident that I knew his feeding pattern, so I decided not to hunt this particular area until Philip and I could team up again.

On Dec. 27th, I decided to hunt a location across our property, approximately 1 mile away, hoping to get a big doe. Around 5pm, a button buck and small doe were feeding in the food plot, so I eased around and got my Hoyt from my easy hanger. As both deer looked up, “BAM”, out stepped “Mack Daddy” (the same big 8 pointer that we had been seeing on the trail camera). Papa Waddell had to let that G5 Stryker fly. He ran about 70-80 yards, and believe it or not – I heard him crash! All three deer had been no more than 25 yards from my stand when I shot, but the wind was right and that Realtree camo had me covered, so I was able to lay that bad boy down.