Cherokee County hunter kills huge 12-point buck

12-point buck

Hunter also killed a doe during the same hunt

You’d think the way things have been going in the deer stand for Doug George, he ought to consider buying a lottery ticket. 

Or two.

This past Sunday morning. Nov. 1, hunting on a piece of property he’d only recently gotten permission to hunt, with trail cameras only out a week or two, hunting from a box blind he’d only hunted once before, George, a 32-year-old Gaffney, S.C., hunter who builds truck chassis for Freightliner, killed a main-frame 8-point buck with a rack so heavy you’d have to wonder how the deer carried it through the woods. 

He had no idea the buck was on his property.

To top it off, he also killed the doe the buck escorted into an overgrown field in front of his Cherokee County box blind.

“I had no idea he was in there,” George said. “I’d only had trail cameras out a little while, and they never had a picture of him. It was only the second time I’d hunted that box blind, because I’d just gotten permission to hunt that place. All I had on my trail cameras were a few small bucks. And I wasn’t going to kill any of them. Small bucks don’t do anything for me.”

George shot the buck twice

This was definitely no small buck. The monster, which George killed with his second shot from a 7mm Mag — his first one just grazed the buck — carried, heavy, thick beams that were 6 and 6 1/8 inches in circumference at the bases, a 4×4 main-frame rack that had an 18 1/2-inch inside spread and four sticker points, one off the base of the left beam, one on each of two tines on the left beam and one on a tine on the right beam. The buck’s longest tines were almost 8 inches. The buck’s antler rack rough-scored 138 1/8 inches. 

George killed the buck at 6:45 a.m., the morning legal hunting began an hour earlier because of the end of Daylight Savings Time. 

“I was looking at an overgrown field, and he was chasing a doe,” George said. “I looked down, and when I looked up, there he was. He’d gotten about 10 yards out in the field and was just standing there. He was standing still when I shot him first, and i had to shoot him again. I was shaking like crazy, and I just grazed him. I had to shoot him again.”

George dropped the buck on the spot with the second shot. He’d only brought three shells with him that morning, and with one left in his magazine, he worked it into the chamber and shot the doe the buck had been following.

“I had three shots, and that was it,” he said.

The most-impressive feature of the buck’s rack was its mass. George could barely get his hands around the bases of the buck’s antlers, and the mass carried all the way to the tips.

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Bag-A-Buck contest

Congratulations to George, who is now entered in our Bag-A-Buck contest, making him eligible for a number of great prizes. This includes the grand prize — a 2-day, two-man hunt at Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge. Click here to view the Bag-A-Buck gallery or to enter the contest yourself.

About Dan Kibler 887 Articles
Dan Kibler is the former managing editor of Carolina Sportsman Magazine. If every fish were a redfish and every big-game animal a wild turkey, he wouldn’t ever complain. His writing and photography skills have earned him numerous awards throughout his career.

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