Trophy buck eluded a sleeping hunter a day earlier
Hunter Evans of Kingstree, SC killed a trophy buck in Williamsburg County on Oct. 18 during an afternoon hunt at his hunt club, after killing a big doe during the same hunt. The buck weighed 170 pounds and green-scored 133 2/8 inches. But if one of his fellow hunt club members hadn’t snoozed in the stand the day before, Evans may have never had a shot at the big buck.
Here’s Evans’ story, in his own words…
My dad and I share a stand in our club. We put up a feeder and camera late August. This is the first time our club has still hunted this property so the feeders were pretty new to the deer. With only a few pictures of does and yearlings, I pulled the feeder the first of October and just left it a corn pile. First night we had 3 small bucks on camera, but nothing worth shooting. Over the next week another few small bucks and a whole wad of does. However, a couple of other members had a really nice 10-point on camera. He had never been by our stand, though.
Daddy wanted to hunt but was apprehensive about going with nothing on camera. I told him that the camera is only looking at less than 1% of the area around the stand. The stand is in a hardwood branch that historically deer have always traveled. He went and saw a few of the small bucks and does, but nothing else. Monday, October 16th, I got a picture of a doe that looked to be about 140 pounds. Since I am competing in a local big doe contest, I figured I’d go try to get her.
Different doe shows up
Wednesday I got in the stand kinda late and bumped a couple deer out of the branch when I was walking to the stand. Sure enough about 20 minutes later a tanker of a doe made her way back into the branch. She walked 25 yards in front of me so couldn’t pass up the video opportunity. With the angle, the bullet entered at the base of the neck and exited in the middle of the opposite shoulder. She jumped in the air and crashed where she landed. Upon further investigation, I realized it was a different doe. The one I killed had a double throat patch…the one in the picture didn’t.
As the evening progressed several more does and a nice young 8-point made their way into the branch. The small 8 began pushing the does all around and he stopped about 80 yards out in some broomstraw and was looking at something behind him. Shortly thereafter he took off running in the opposite direction. I saw the tips of another set of horns in the broomstraw. As soon as I looked at him with the binoculars, I knew it was the big 10. I only had a couple narrow windows through the branches to be able to shoot through. Due to the direction he was headed, I wasn’t sure if I could get another shot. So got the rifle up and gave him the ol’ “mahhhh” to stop him. He looked at me and I took the shot. He disappeared immediately. I was 99% sure he fell right there but I was still a little nervous. I called daddy and told him what I had shot, then climbed down.
Trophy buck dropped on the spot
There weren’t any very good landmarks due to the broomstraw being chest high, so I just walked straight to where I thought he was standing. Sure enough, he had gone down right were I’d guessed. I sat there for a minute just staring at the biggest buck I had ever had the opportunity to shoot at. I grabbed my phone and took a quick video of me holding the deer. Judging by how hard I was breathing in that video clip, I was apparently more excited than I realized at the time.
I went back to the sign-in box to wait for some help to load my two deer. The first guy to show up had a stand adjacent to mine and had the most pictures of the buck. As I told him what had happened he proceeded to tell me his story from the day before. He got in his stand and was playing a game on his phone just before 6:00 pm. Next thing he remembers he is waking up at 6:25 pm and had a group of does on the corn pile. His phone dinged from his trail camera…as he scrolled through the doe pictures guess who was there from 6:02-6:09pm. Yep, the buck I had just shot.
Moral of the story? Don’t rely exclusively on trail cameras to know what is at your hunting spot…and also don’t fall asleep in the stand.
Details
rifle …….Savage 110
Caliber….6mm Creedmoor
Bullet……103gn ELD-X
Distance…80 Yards
Buck Weight…170#
Rough green score…133 2/8
Doe weight…128.5#
Hunter Evans
Kingstree SC
Williamsburg County
10/18/23 Afternoon
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Bag A Buck Contest
Congratulations to Evans, 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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