Adam Lomax's giant typical buck is turning eyes toward the success that can be found in suburban hunting areas. (Photo courtesy of Adam Lomax)
October 08, 2021
By Blake Garlock
Breaking News Bucks 2021 Adam Lomax hunts in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. He doesn’t own the land he hunts; however, he does have permission on a five-acre property east of Atlanta.
“There aren’t many other hunters around,” says Adam. “This is just a small property with a highway on one side of it. And for some reason, big deer move through it once in a while.”
Although it’s a small parcel in a suburban area, the property has one thing working in its favor: an abundance of oak trees. And just when the acorns started to fall where Adam hunts, his trail cameras caught a giant typical whitetail coming through the property after dark.
Adam's trail camera pictures tipped him off to the buck's patterns and movement. (Photo courtesy of Adam Lomax) “He was a regular every night, but he always came in the middle of the night,” says Adam. “He never showed up during the day.”
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The buck first crossed in front of Adam’s trail camera on Wednesday Sept. 22, and within a couple days of the buck first showing up, Adam put out some corn to further entice the deer into an area where he could hunt the buck.
Adam decided to hunt the deer on Friday Sept. 24, but the deer stuck to his nighttime pattern and never showed up until well after legal shooting hours had ended. Adam hunted again on Sunday. However, the buck was still nocturnal.
Adam knew that since the buck was consistently in the area, it was only a matter of time before he would show up in the daylight. On Monday Sept. 27, Adam wanted to get out and hunt the deer, but he couldn’t because of his work schedule. Unfortunately, that evening would have been a great one to be in the blind.
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“He showed up on Monday,” Adam says. “He came in right at the end of legal shooting light, and that was when I knew he would eventually slip up and I’d get an opportunity.”
Luckily, Adam had a break in his work schedule on Wednesday. So, he seized the opportunity and got in his ground blind that sits within a patch of oak trees. It was also about 20 yards from his corn pile.
Eventually, two does came in and cautiously fed on acorns. Later, the does walked off. But before they completely left the area, they kept staring in the direction where Adam expected the buck to come from.
Then, Adam heard movement in the woods.
The giant typical came into view about 60 yards from Adam and began eating acorns. Adam watched the deer through his binoculars as light waned, and eventually his arms got tired, so he lowered his optics. When he put the binoculars back to his face, he was confused.
“When I looked through the binoculars, there was a different buck standing where the other deer had been,” says Adam. “It was a smaller buck that I recognized, and I thought my eyes had played tricks on me before.”
However, Adam’s eyes hadn’t played a trick on him. While he was viewing the smaller buck through his optics, he caught movement in his peripheral view. The big deer was on the corn pile.Adam watched the deer for several minutes before he could get a shot. Then the buck turned broadside, and Adam tried to draw his bow.
“When I went to draw, my Full Metal Jacket arrow fell off of my bow,” says Adam. “It hit the ground, and the buck heard it fall. He stared into the blind, but never spooked.”
Once the buck relaxed and lowered his head, Adam loaded another arrow onto the bow. Again, Adam drew, but this time his arrow didn’t fall and his shot hit the deer in the vitals.
Adam unofficially rough-scored the deer at 175 inches. However, the buck’s antlers weren’t the only things that impressed Adam.
“In Georgia, we don’t get many big-bodied deer,” says Adam. “But I estimated this buck would weigh over 250 pounds. He was definitely my biggest-bodied Georgia buck.”
Adam's grip-and-grin photo shows his true happiness with his Georgia buck. (Photo courtesy of Adam Lomax)