Great 8-pointer taken in Williamsburg County

‘Neglected’ stand produces South Carolina record-book buck for local hunter

Williamsburg County has produced another record-book buck, with Leon Grayson, father-in-law of the president of White Oak Hunt Club, putting the smack down on one of the finest 8-point bucks he’s ever seen from that part of South Carolina.

Greer Copeland, president of the hunt club and Grayson’s son-in-law, explained the 205-pound, 145-inch deer with a 21-inch inside spread, “He got a real stud on a stand that nobody has hunted all year.”

Grayson, owner of Cedar Swamp Quail Preserve and Pheasant Tower in the heart of Williamsburg County, literally harvested the efforts of the club and neighboring landowners on Sept. 24.

White Oak’s cooperative efforts with its neighbors and hard work on club lands helped make success stories like this one happen. And Copeland couldn’t be any happier his father-in-law ended up with one of their best bucks of the season.

The first week of the autumn brought cooler weather and slurry of deer movement around the county.

“We expected the deer to be moving around a bit with the cooler weather and sure enough, I looked up and see a big one moving through at around 200 yards out,” said Grayson, who was set up watching a broom straw field between several patches of sorghum and sunflowers.

The field was grown up just enough to afford protection to transients heading to and from bedding and feeding areas. Just a few weeks earlier, Copeland and Grayson had noticed a bachelor group of big bucks gallivanting in the broom straw. They almost moved the stand to gain access to the nearby agriculture field, but thankfully, they agreed to leave the stand, in hopes of catching deer trading back and forth between feeding and bedding areas. Their decisions would be rewarded on that chilly Monday morning.

As the day began 20 minutes after sunrise, Grayson’s third buck of the day happened to his big buck.

As soon as Grayson recognized the deer, it didn’t take long to take aim and squeeze the trigger on his 30-year-old Mauser-Werke .30-06.

“At 200 yards away and moving swiftly across my sights, I didn’t waste any time looking too hard before I shot.”