Georgia Giants!
Summer 2025
Article and photo by Jimmy Jacobs.
We all love to hear those stories of hunts that produce deer with outstanding racks. Such trophy tales not only entertain, but we are also hoping they give us clues as to where we should be hunting next season to score such a big buck.
Benny Overholt’s cactus buck was the highest scoring rack of the last decade in the Peach State and a winner in the Georgia Big Deer Contest for 2021.
On the other hand, if that behemoth deer was downed back in 1984 in a particular county, odds are the field it was felled in probably now is paved over as a parking lot for a Dollar General store. Georgia is a growing state, and with it comes urban and suburban sprawl. To learn anything about where big bucks roam today, it is better to look at more recent seasons and the bruisers they yielded.
For that information, let’s look at some of the winners of the Georgia Big Deer Contest during the last decade. This contest is co-sponsored by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Georgia Outdoor Writers Association and Georgia Outdoor News magazine. It is the longest continuously running such competition in the state, first established back in 1967.
Winners are declared in four categories – typical archery, non-typical archery, typical firearms and non-typical firearms. Scoring of the racks is using the Pope & Young Club scoring measurements for archery harvests and Boone & Crockett Club for firearms kills.
In looking at the two top racks from the last decade in each of these categories, it is interesting to note that all eight of those bucks would qualify for the B&C All-time Record Book. For typical racks that mandates a score of 170 or higher and for non-typicals 195 or more. Although the standards for the P&Y record book are less stringent, even the ones taken with a bow top the B&C marks.
The typical firearms division top buck of the last decade came from Brooks County in deep South Georgia. On October 24, 2018, Roger Price bagged a deer sporting a rack scoring 186 2/8 B&C points. The second biggest of the decade was Wade Severson’s 182 6/8 B&C taken in Wilcox County on November 18, 2022.
Among the non-typical firearms winners of the last 10 years, the biggest was a 200 3/8 B&C buck from Worth County. On November 2, 2016, Shannon Sledge put that deer down. Proving Worth County continued to hold some big deer, the No. 2 non-typical also was taken there. On November 4, 2020, Colby Johnson shot a 195 3/8 B&C buck.
In the typical archery category, the top buck of the last decade was taken in suburban Gwinnett County on the northeast fringe of Atlanta. Grant Bailey was hunting on September 10, 2023, when he downed a buck with a rack scoring 174 3/8 P&Y points. Proving that “you might be a redneck if you deer hunt,” the No. 2 typical archery buck was arrowed by famed comedian Jeff Foxworthy on September 27, 2018. He took that 170 2/8 P&Y deer in Harris County.
Surprisingly, the two bucks with the largest racks of the last 10 years were both taken in the non-typical archery category. On September 13, 2021, while hunting in Macon County, Benny Overholt bagged a buck with a “cactus” rack that still was in velvet. The final score for the rack was 222 4/8 P&Y points. The No.2 rack came from Cobb County on the northwest edge of Atlanta. That 200 5/8 P&Y buck was downed by Lee Ellis on September 19, 2019.
If these bucks tell us anything, it is that we have some big deer in both our rural and suburban counties.
Jimmy Jacobs is the editor of Georgia Outdoor Adventures, as well as being editor/publisher of On The Fly South. He also is a member of the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association. He makes his home in Marietta with his English setters, Luke and Lulu. He can be contacted at jimmyjacobs@mindspring.com.