Brandt Wells, 7, spent a full season chasing his Mason County seven pointer. After several close encounters, including making non-lethal shot on the deer Thanksgiving Day, Wells finally closed the deal on New Year's eve. (Courtesy Photo)
January 31, 2019 - It is every deer hunter's worst nightmare to wound an animal and fail in the recovery. Sort of like it is every young hunter's dream to bring home a bragging size whitetail buck.
Brandt Wells of Center saw both sides of the fence this season as he lived out a Thanksgiving Day nightmare that culminated with a fairy tale ending on New Year's eve. Sandwiched in between was an emotional roller coaster of events that may have been more than most youngsters could handle. Remarkably, the Center Elementary School second grader took it all in stride.
"He is not your average seven-year-old, said Jason Wells, the youth's father. "Brandt is one serious individual -- really mature for his age. He knows what he is doing out there."
Wells' outdoor savvy is built around plenty of experience in the woods and on the water. To wit:
The youngster has been loading and unloading a bass boat off the trailer since he was four. Just last year, at the age six, he may have saved his dad's life as they broke in a new outboard engine at Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
The elder Wells is a diabetic. He and Brandt were at the upper reaches of the Angelina River in the vicinity of Stanley Creek when his blood sugar got out of whack, causing him to pass out in the seat.
Realizing the emergency situation, the young angler called 911, took the wheel of the bass boat and drove it to the Cassels-Boykin boat ramp, located several miles down the lake.
A state game warden was waiting at the ramp and Wells was still unconscious when they arrived. The warden asked the youth for the code to unlock Wells' pick-up so he could back the trailer down the ramp and load the boat.
"Brandt told the warden he could handle loading the boat -- all he needed to do was back the trailer down," Wells chuckled. "The game warden was still there when I woke up. He told me he'd never seen a kid do what Brandt did that day."
As good as he is at operating a boat, Wells is a pretty salty deer hunter, too.
Prior to this season, Wells already had four deer under his belt. All of them were bucks.
"I ain't never killed the first doe," he said. "All I kill is bucks."
What makes Wells' most recent deer hunting tale so unique is it revolves around one buck, two shots, a good ol' dose of buck fever and a single box blind located deep in the heart of a 860-acre Mason County deer lease he and his dad share with a friend.
There aren't a lot whopper bucks in that part the world, but there are plenty of animals roaming around to keep young eyes entertained on just about every trip into field. From opening weekend forward, the youth hunter had his sights set on a tall-tined seven pointer he came to know as ol' Tall Rack.
First Impressions
"We checked our game cameras on November 4 and there he was," Jason Wells said. "We'd never seen him before, but Brandt knew right then that was the deer he wanted to shoot. He was a really tall and unique deer. Plus, he was mature."
The buck was pretty smart, too. In fact, the Wells never actually laid eyes on the deer for the first time until they returned to lease a few weeks later over the Thanksgiving holidays. That's when something really strange happened.
Disappearing Act
Wells said it was beginning to get dusky dark on Thanksgiving afternoon when five does merged from the brush. Tall Rack was on their heels, but the deer held up in some mesquites for several minutes before walking into the open, about 75 yards away. Wells used a grunt call to stop the deer and the youngster made what appeared to be a clean neck shot with his .223.
"He dropped him right there," Wells said.
The hunters remained in the stand for about 10 minutes before scrambling to their side-by-side to retrieve the prize buck. What they found when they returned came as a total shock.
"He was gone," Wells said. "There wasn't anything other than five drops of blood. We got two other guys to help and we crawled around on our knees. We looked for a good 45 minutes that night, three solid hours the next morning and never found a trace. He just vanished."
Wells said they hunted from the same stand the rest of the weekend hoping the deer might show back up but he never did.
"We were both pretty sick about it, especially Brandt," Wells said. "We talked about it every single day until we we went back before Christmas. He asked me every day if thought he was still alive. It ate him up."
A New Attitude
The first order of business when the hunters returned to the lease on December 21 was to check game cameras for any sign of Tall Rack. Surprisingly, they discovered nearly two dozen images of the buck dating back more than three weeks.
"He came in just about every day," Wells said. "Turns out he was right back in front of our stand the day after we left. It was relief to me, but you should have seen the joy in that kid's eyes. His whole attitude changed when he found out that deer was still alive."
Buck Fever
The hunters saw the buck multiple times during the five-day visit. Interestingly, Wells said it showed no signs of injury as it chased does in and out of the area.
"You couldn't tell there was a thing wrong that deer," he said.
The youngster missed out on two golden opportunities in the process -- once when the deer slipped by before he could get off a shot, another when a bad case of buck fever set in shortly after daylight on Christmas morning.
"He came in and out several times chasing does," Wells said. "But by the time the deer settled in Brandt was so rattled with buck fever that he couldn't hold the scope steady. The buck stayed put for about 10 seconds and he was gone. When I looked at Brandt he had two small tears rolling down his cheeks. He was pretty upset. He thought he'd blown it."
Brandt Wells, 7, spent a full season chasing his Mason County seven pointer. After several close encounters, including making non-lethal shot on the deer Thanksgiving Day, Wells finally closed the deal on New Year's eve. (Courtesy Photo)
A Fairy Tale Ending
With the season waning, there was still time for one more flip-flop trip to the lease around the New Year holiday. The father/son arrived at camp on the afternoon of December 28, only to witness another setback two days later when the scope on the youth's rifle malfunctioned and caused it to blur with Tall Rack standing broadside at 75 yards.
"I just about lost hope at that point," Wells said. "Every time we saw him something seemed to go wrong. It was pretty frustrating, to say the least."
New Year's eve morning brought a different kind of luck. The buck showed up about 7:30 and offered the youngster another broadside shot 75 yards. The .223 bullet found the buck's vitals this time. It fell roughly 60 yards way.
Not surprisingly, Wells was quick to examine buck's neck to learn what happened with his son's first bullet. Turns out it fragmented into three pieces and wedged against the hide.
"I've got all three pieces in our safe to remember him by," Wells said. "That's one deer hunting hunting experience neither of us will ever forget. Brandt sometimes called him the 150-hour buck because we spent so dang much time chasing him, but I call him the Chapter 11 buck because he nearly broke me running back and forth out there so much. But it was all worth it in the long run." Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by e-mail, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com.
