MEMORABLE HUNTS: Gainesville hunter's wait for 'Kickstand' pays off

For Gainesville resident Tyelor Estes, one particular buck became much more than another deer on a trail camera. Estes’s camera first caught a glimpse of the deer on June 25, 2025. “I couldn’t quite tell what was going on with his antlers, but I knew it was going to be cool,” he said.  As the summer went on, a distinctive kicker growing from its main beam became more apparent. Because of the way the unusual kicker off the deer’s main beam grew outward and slightly downward, Estes decided to give the buck a fitting nickname: “Kickstand.”

The deer had a relatively small body, leading Estes to believe it was still a young buck. He decided he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to harvest it during rifle season, but if the buck survived 2025 firearms portion, he would leave it alone for the remaining archery and alternative methods seasons last year. 

“During [rifle] season, I got just enough pictures to know he was hanging around. But he was rarely out in the daylight,” he said. The buck made it through rifle season, and Estes kept his word and didn’t harvest him the rest of the 2025-26 season, a two month span. 

He later found one of the buck’s shed antlers, the side that grew normally. He didn’t ever locate the shed side with the unusual kicker. Knowing the deer had survived another season, Estes stepped up his efforts to improve the habitat and food plots on his property. 

“It was basically a part-time job studying and scouting these deer in the off season,” he said. 

When the buck’s new rack began developing, it became clear that the distinctive kicker wasn’t a one-time occurrence. The deer’s rack was growing in much the same pattern as the year before, only with even more unusual features.

“It seemed like every time I got a picture, something more unique was happening. He quickly became number one on our hit list,” Estes said. 

Still, the decision to pursue him wasn’t easy. The buck continued to have a small body, and Estes knew the deer could still be relatively young and had more potential the older he got. He had to weigh the opportunity to harvest the unusual deer against the possibility of letting it grow another year and taking the chance another hunter may harvest the deer instead.

As this year’s archery season opened in mid-September, the hunting conditions were difficult. It was hot and dry, and daylight trail-camera photos were scarce. 

“After several hunts, I decided that my best bet was to back off and wait until mid-October and get aggressive,” he said. “As youth season approached, I hunted hard with no luck and few pictures.

“I saw him after youth season, and that was a huge relief,” he said, thankful that a youth hunter hadn’t harvested the buck and he still had the opportunity to continue his pursuit of the animal. Still, Estes knew he needed to catch up to the deer before rifle season began this year.

On Oct. 27, he convinced his girlfriend Bretlyn to hunt, too. She headed to one location while he went to another. “At this point, I was so used to coming home empty-handed that I just assumed it would be another one of those times,” he said.

Then he saw Kickstand. 

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was his first encounter with the buck within bow range,” Estes said. When the deer moved its head, Estes saw the curled main beam and immediately recognized the animal he had spent so much time watching. At 21 yards, he made his shot. “The chase was finally over,” Estes said in recounting the hunt.

Kickstand scored right at 160 inches and carried a 10-inch kicker. The buck is the biggest deer Estes has ever harvested. “The coolest part was Bretlyn was just a short distance away,” he said. 

After a year of scouting, a season of difficult hunting and more than a year of watching one remarkable buck grow, Estes finally had the opportunity he had been waiting for. And that story will live on for a lifetime.