Hunting can be many things to those of us who love pursuing whitetails. To Floyd Bennett, in November 2025, it was temporary respite from sorrow.
For a brief window, in the deer stand, Floyd’s mind wasn’t weighed down by the crushing loss of his daughter and her two babies, killed by a thoughtless driver. In the deer stand, autumn light and small sounds of wildlife helped to ease his grief. The appearance — and harvesting — of a world class buck brought him much-needed happiness.
Nine months earlier, Floyd had been awakened from a deep sleep at 3 a.m. by a call from his ex-wife with the news that his precious
daughter, Taeler, and her little ones had been mowed down while crossing a street in Sarasota, FL.
“The owners of 200 acres in Putnam County, IN, knew it had been a tough year for me,” says Floyd. “My son, Zach, had told them exactly how tough, and they invited me down to hunt their stand while they went to another town.”
Floyd confesses that he lost pleasure in everything, even hunting, after Taeler died. “My whole world went colorless, went blah,” he says.
Complicating things further, and adding physical pain to the emotional, the 53-year-old landscaping operations manager had undergone right knee surgery in March. As if that weren’t enough, his left knee had a torn meniscus at the time of his hunt. Asked how bad his pain was, he says, “Eight on a scale of one to 10. I was scheduled for the second surgery just a few weeks later.”
The day of Nov. 15 started out with a success for 29-year-old Zach.
He killed a 150-incher in the morning on the other side of the farm with an 80-yard shot at the buck that was trailing a doe across a picked corn field.
This was Floyd’s first hunt with his son in 15 years. “He got turned loose when he was 13,” Floyd jokes. Now, glad to be out in tandem, they shared a double 18-foot ladder stand overlooking a hardwood bottom with a nearby creek. Soybean and corn row crops spread out around them.
“I’d had no history with this buck. Zero,” says Floyd.
“Normally, I scout a property and look for scrapes and rubs, but this was not my usual place. My buck was a complete surprise to everyone. The landowners and Zach, who run trail cams, had never seen him before.
But there is one possible explanation: Nov. 15 was the peak of the rut. Floyd’s buck, when it turned up, was right behind a doe.
The day was hot and windy, Floyd recalls.
“We watched a couple of does bedded in a fallen tree. Zach and I were talking about the year and how hunting was no fun any more.
At 5 p.m., Zach stood up and looked around. Suddenly, he grabbed my head and said, Omigod!”
Floyd’s single shot .44 mag was leaning against the rail in front of him. He grabbed for the gun and stood.
“I turned around, and the giant was 100 yards away, straight behind the stand,” he says. “I didn’t see him at first. Then he was straight in front of me. I’m leaning out around a oak to get a shot. I didn’t pay attention to his antlers. I tried to get him in my scope because the hardwoods around me were really thick. I found a shooting lane, and still leaning, I fired and heard a wallop when it hit him. He didn’t know where it came from, so he came towards us, closer. I reloaded and fired again. This one hit his left shoulder.”
The buck spun and ran 80 yards and bedded down. Floyd and Zach could see its antlers moving. A doe that was watching from under the tree stand spooked and ran past the buck. It jumped up and ran with her.
“It managed to go another 50 yards before piling up in the creek, but we didn’t know that at the time. We thought it had disappeared for good. Zach was in panic mode. He was on the phone dialing dog trackers and drone trackers. He kept saying, Dad you don’t know what you just shot! And that was true.”
Floyd waited until it got good and dark, he says.
“We got on his blood trail, and it was easy to follow. We didn’t need help from trackers. When we found him, his body was in the creek and his head was on the bank. That’s when I saw his antlers and got a little emotional. I’d had no clue. All I could say was, Holy cow, thank you God.
It had been a year.”
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