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Shannon Sitton a Whitetail Stalker
Well, let’s start right off with Whitetail Stalkers. Shannon Sitton a Whitetail Stalker. How’d you get involved with Mike and Shelly? Yeah, that’s actually a funny story. This was all a Facebook connection. I’m pretty big on social media and I posted for Flying Air Archery doing a Toxic Broadhead review Mike saw it, messaged me, said “Hey, who does your video editing? Do you like to hunt?” And obviously, the answer to that is yes. And that is how Mike Grandstaff and I were introduced. And that’s how I became a part of Whitetail Stalker. All because of social media. Shannon Sitton a Whitetail Stalker
All because of social media.
I’m 43, soon to be 44. Yeah, and I picked up my first bow when I was nine years old and immediately started walking around the yard taking small game rabbits, squirrels, that type of thing. It only took me about a year to progress into bowhunting. And I took my first whitetail deer with a bow when I was 12 years old. So pretty exciting time right there, and then it has just exploded from there. Shannon Sitton a Whitetail Stalker
I started shooting some competition 3D archery when I was 13, did that all through high school up through college and then graduated college and had to join the workforce so that cut down on my 3D shooting but continued to bow hunt. I’ve bow hunted whitetail deer in Missouri Ozarks since that time since I was about 12, 13 years old. Shannon Sitton a Whitetail Stalker
Tell me a story about your first buck.
Yeah, my first buck, oh boy, it was a quick one too. It was just a spike buck, not much to it, of course, I didn’t have a driver’s license at the time, so my dad would drive me out he didn’t bow hunt, he rifle hunted but just never bow hunted. And he drove me out to our deer hunting spot and would let me out of the truck and he would sit around the truck and do whatever he did and scout and that kind of thing while I bow hunted. And I’d literally walk out of the truck, went to my spot, I sat down on a log cause I didn’t have a tree stand at the time I just hunted from the ground and the sun came up and it was like the deer had been standing there the entire time. Shannon Sitton a Whitetail Stalker
It was like it got daylight and I looked up and I’m like, “Whoa, there’s a deer in front of me.” And he was fairly close, 20-25 yards and I drew back on it, didn’t make the best shot had a little buck fever and we spent the entire day looking for that deer. But around dark right as it got dark that evening we ended up finding that deer. So pretty exciting time.
Oh okay, well we’re hunting not Mark Twain but the state Missouri conservation area it’s a public area to hunt. And we pull in and normally we go and hunt out there quite often so had a spot that we went to and he just parked on the logging road there, the service road, whatever you want to call it in there. Shannon Sitton a Whitetail Stalker
And he just stopped there and I got out and I walked down the road and off to the woods just probably, I don’t know, 50 or 60 yards or so just to where I could still see the road and sat down on this log that I’d scouted and knew the deer would be coming through there and early October mornings you know how they are in the Ozarks, starting to get a little chill in the air and the deer are starting to move. And it was just an amazing experience. I’ll never forget it.
I’ll never forget it.
Yeah, I was actually gun hunting far into deer season and I remember the exact day on that. That was November 19, 1989, was my first mature buck harvest. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had obviously grown up a little bit and got more into hunting and had spent more time in the woods doing scouting, looking for deer, finding deer signs, deer trails, actually going after the summertime, and trying to locate deer.
This was before we had game cameras, so a game camera was non-existent at this point. So you had to do all your scouting was on foot, with binoculars and just being out there and watching the deer and I had noticed a pretty nice deer on a couple of occasions throughout the summertime. It was a velvet and bow hunted through all the first part of archery season was not successful, actually never saw the deer. And then on that day in November during gun season, I went to my spot had hunted seemed like three or four days, I hunted all day, sat in my blind, had a ground blind set up and hunted three or four days straight and nothing. And then it was around 10:30 in the morning, I believe that was a Saturday morning, and just doing what you do, keeping your eyes open, looking around, trying to play the wind a little better, see a couple of does coming.
And that deer scored 141 inches.
One doe went around me about 50 or 60 yards, I think she’d probably caught a little wind of me and turned and tried to get around me. And when she did I saw another deer and it was another doe. And I was like “Whoa, we’re in the prime right here in Missouri in the middle of November so there’s probably a buck pretty close” so I stayed still and just kept watching the does and the third doe come and it wasn’t probably 10 minutes after that here come this buck that I had seen before tailing those does. He had his nose on the ground, was running after them, chasing those does. And he run probably out to about 40 yards of me broadside and stopped for just a second and that’s when I squeezed the trigger and I was able to take that deer. And that deer scored 141 inches.
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