Young Sawyer Watts had been watching a great buck on trail cameras for the past three of years, just waiting for it to really mature. And the animal almost went down last season, when one of Watts’ buddies missed the deer.
But last Tuesday (Jan. 25), the 14-year-old Watts made his shot at the 160-class deer count.
Watts’ father, Jason, had been hunting the deer all season, but never seemed to time it right.
“I hunted one stand 18 days straight, I mean morning and evening,” Jason Watts said. “Jan. 1 was my (wedding) anniversary, so I took my wife to Natchez for dinner that afternoon.
“When I got back, I checked my camera and he was standing in front of the stand at 5:30 (p.m.), and nobody was on it.”
That only encouraged his son, who gave the issue some thought and came up with a plan – without the help of his father – to ambush the deer.
“He wasn’t coming in (food plot) until late at night, and I knew I had to get closer where hopefully he was bedding,” Sawyer Watts explained.
So the youngster lugged a climbing stand into the woods a quarter mile away, and on Jan. 25 he didn’t let a cold rain stop him from jacking up the tree.
Twenty minutes later, as daylight faded, he heard splashing in a little creek that is dry unless it rains. He looked down the now-flowing creek and knew something headed his way.
“I could just see a little water moving,” Sawyer Watts said.
A few seconds later, a buck appeared, moseying along the creek bed.
“I just seen his horns,” Watts said. “My heart was about to beat out of my chest.”
The deer was only 45 yards away, and the hunter quickly shouldered the .223-caliber rifle (more on that later) he had borrowed from his little brother.
When the rifle fired, it was obvious the shot connected.
“He fell right there on his front shoulders, and was pushing through the woods with his back legs,” Watts said.
As the deer disappeared, the shaking young hunter pulled out his cell phone.
“I called Daddy and told him I killed a big deer,” he said.
The elder Watts instructed his son to head home before looking for the deer. When they returned, not a drop of blood could be found.
“We just found white hair where he hit the ground,” Sawyer Watts said.
The father-son team scoured the area, but couldn’t find anything. That’s when it was apparent to both the hunters that Sawyer Watts had chosen the wrong tool for the job.
“He’s got a 7 Mag and a .30-06, and he took his baby brother’s .223,” Jason Watts said. “I got mad, and he got mad for letting him choose that gun.”
The Wattses finally gave up, and headed home. Jason Watts was going to return the following morning to continue looking, while his son went to school.
It was a miserable night, and the next morning Sawyer Watts found it difficult to concentrate on school work.
However, he soon was relieved of his worries.
“Daddy came and checked me out,” Sawyer Watts said.
The elder Watts had walked up on the dead buck that morning not far from the search area of the night before, and he couldn’t wait to let his son know.
“I was as excited that he killed it as if I shot it,” Jason Watts said.
Ten main-frame points decorated the beams of the rack, with an extra scoreable sticker rounding out the count. The inside spread stretched to 18 ½ inches, and the G2s topped 10 inches in length. Each base was greater than 5 inches around.
It green scored 163 2/8 Boone & Crockett.
Sawyer Watts said he was stunned when he arrived home.
“He was bigger than I thought he was,” he said. “There wasn’t no camera shrinkage.”
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