Camden Lott eased towards his stand in full stealth mode while searching for an unseen buck. Lott had hunted on this land many times before, usually with his grandaddy, James Homer Massey. Lott killed his first buck with Grandaddy Massey a few years back and the bond they created could never be broken, even by Massey’s unexpected passing last year.
Lott followed in the footsteps of his mother, Keren Massey Lott, who also walked in the footsteps of her father on hunts with him in her younger years. Though he is now gone, his legacy remains in his children and grandchildren, including young Camden Lott, not yet an adult hunter.
Arriving at the stand, Lott quickly ascended the shoot house and surveyed the area around the stand but the memories of the good times and prior hunts with Grandaddy Massey lingered strong in his thoughts.
“Some does came into the field so I decided to shoot one,” Lott said.
Lott centered his crosshairs on a plump doe and squeezed off a shot and she took off like a bolt of lightning. Lott wasn’t sure he’d made a good shot, so he stayed put. Things hadn’t started out good, but the 15-year-old Sebastopol 10th grader had high hopes that his luck would change.
“About an hour later a dozen does came into the pipeline and started feeding,” Lott said. “I was texting my friends about how many deer were in the field and I looked up and saw a big buck walk out looking straight at me.
“I was shaking, and my adrenalin was really flowing. I was trying to aim at him, but I had to settle down a minute and then another buck, came out right beside the first one so I had to let them separate before I shot.
“The second buck was substantially bigger than the first one and I knew he was a shooter instantly.”
Lott wasted no time settling the crosshairs on this buck and he slowly squeezed the trigger.
“Tic-Boom,” roared the .270 Browning BAR and down he went.
“He tried to get back up and I shot him again,” Lott said. “I wasn’t going to let him get away like the doe had earlier.”
One last precision shot ended any chance of escape and the buck of a lifetime was in his grasp. It didn’t take long before his dad Trent Lott and Uncle Ty Massey showed up to help. As it turned out, Lott had made a good shot on the doe as well and they found her a short distance away.
Tears of joy were shed by many family members right there at the scene of the triumphant kill. As Ty Massey took photos of the monster buck he struggled to hold back the tears through his poignant words to Camden and all within ear shot, “Grandaddy would be so proud Camden, Grandaddy would be so proud!”
Click here to read other big-buck stories from this season.
