Big swamp buck sported 156-inch antler rack
Hunter Price was really happy that a huge, trophy buck snuck up on him on Thanksgiving afternoon, after the turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce had all been cleaned up and put away for leftovers.
“He slipped up on me. I didn’t see or hear anything until he was just there,” said Price, 22-years-old from Princeton, N.C. “I’m glad. If I’d seen him coming, I’d have probably shaken out of the tree stand.”
But he didn’t. And at 25 yards, shooting a 12-gauge Benelli shotgun loaded with 3-inch 00 buckshot, he dropped on the spot a 156-inch, 8-point Johnston County buck.
“I was hunting some family land nobody has hunted in five years,” Price said. “The place I was hunting was only 5 or 5 1/2 acres, along the edge of a swamp. A shotgun was the only thing you could get a shot with in there.”
Price had a handful of trail-camera photos of the buck around the first of November. But then the buck disappeared.
“He went dormant. I didn’t have any more photos of him until the day I killed him,” Price said. “I figured he had either gotten killed or gone off somewhere else. He had scrapes and rubs everywhere.”
Trophy buck weighed 185 pounds, had a 21 1/2-inch inside spread
Price had stuck an old metal ladder stand up against a pine tree about a hundred yards from the swamp. He knew the area fairly well from duck hunting in past seasons. He had a corn pile, but he was really baiting with acorns.
“I hadn’t freshened the corn in about a week and a half. But he hadn’t been there for more than two weeks. He had been eating acorns. I’ve got a couple of oak trees around my house. And I had filled several 5-gallon buckets up with acorns and put them out.”
On Thanksgiving afternoon, Price was in his stand when the buck suddenly appeared, 25 yards away.
“At 4:55, he came out of the swamp,” he said. “I didn’t hear him coming. He must have had a great trail through there. There are two sloughs 8 or 10 feet deep he had to cross.”
Given a broadside shot, Price quickly took it and dropped the buck on the spot.
“I knew I’d never find him if he didn’t drop right there, if he got back in the swamp,” he said.
The swamp buck was a real trophy. At 185 pounds, he had a 21 1/2-inch inside spread, two tines that were 12 1/2 inches long, and two more that were 10 inches long. One of his antlers carried a tiny sticker point, less than an inch long.
Be the first to comment