2-year quest produces trophy buck
After a 2-year quest, Chas Morton of Rock Hill, SC killed an 11-point buck that weighed 210 pounds in York County on Oct. 28, 2023. The tall-racked buck had plenty of mass, and is the biggest deer Morton has killed in South Carolina. He shares his story with us here:
I had been hunting this deer for the past two years, and last year he was on the top of my hit list. Unfortunately last year, I could never seem to be in the right spot when he would daylight. I only had a couple of trail cam pics of him. And the last one I got was a night photo at the end of December. So I assumed he made it through the 2022 season.
Fast forward to this year and I hadn’t seen him yet on any of my cameras. Luckily I had already gotten one big deer this year. So I wasn’t too worried about not seeing him. But I was a little disappointed. I thought maybe he had gotten hit by a car, or maybe someone else had gotten him early in the season, and that is why I hadn’t seen him. I did know looking back at my trial cam pics from last year that it was mid October when I first got a picture of him. Knowing that, and the fact that I had already killed a good deer on the other side of the farm, I made a plan to hunt the area he daylighted last year.
No stand, no problem
That area, and based on the wind that morning, required me to hunt from the ground. Similar to way I killed my other buck at the beginning of the year. I didn’t have a stand in there and I didn’t want to push far in, so I used my turkey chair and just sat up against a tree looking down a creek.
I had only seen one small spike so far that morning when at around 9:30 a.m., I just happened to look to my right, and there was a large-framed buck standing 25 yards from me on the other side of the creek. He had come from the direction I walked in, not the direction I thought he would. It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to look him over to know it was even my target buck. I just knew in that split second that it was a shooter buck.
I quickly spun to my right and made a quick mouth grunt to stop him and squeezed off a shot. He quickly bolted out of sight. After waiting for a good 45 minutes or more, I started across the creek to where I had last seen him. To my surprise I could only find two small drops of blood. At this point I got worried I had somehow made a bad shot. I decided to go back to my truck and give it some more time before I pushed any farther in the direction he ran.
Perfect shot ends 2-year quest
As I started back to my truck, I scanned the timber with my binoculars. To my surprise I saw antlers sticking up from the forest floor. The buck went less than 50 yards from the spot I shot him. Once I got over to him I knew right away it was my buck from last year I was after and he was even bigger this year!
The shot was perfect. It just buried into his off-shoulder on the quartering away shot and didn’t exit, which is why there wasn’t much blood. He has major mass on his tall rack and has 11pts. Not sure what he will score yet but he is the largest deer I have taken to date in SC. The two year quest has finally come to a end!
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Bag A Buck Contest
Congratulations to Morton, who is now in the running for our monthly prize of a free 1-year subscription to Carolina Sportsman Magazine, a Mini Maglite, an 18-ounce Yeti Rambler, a two-pack of Lowcountry Seasonings, as well as our Grand Prize, which includes a 3-year-subscription to Carolina Sportsman Magazine, a 2-day two-person hunt at Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge in Chesterfield, SC, and other prizes to be determined.
See all the bucks entered so far, and upload yours at carolinasportsman.com/bag-a-buck-2023, or email photo and detailed info to images@carolinasportsman.com.
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