4 years ago we had this deer on camera we watched him for 3 years then all of a sudden he disappeared we thought he had gotten shot he was remarkable the last year we seen him he had crab claw split at the end of his main beam so this year came around 2 weeks after rifle season came in he showed up we had a couple younger bucks on camera but he’s been the only one we’ve had since season opener and he was the dominant one in the area the whole week before he was shot he was chasing 2 certain does on camera I could tell it was only 2 certain does he was only showing on camera at night and early in the night of morning I told my dad we were gonna have to have those does come out for us to kill him so the next evening we went hunting my dads stand is 200 yards above the creek on top of the acorn holler to the right of my stand about 30 minutes before dark I hit my grunt call cause I knew if he was around and heard it he would come so 15 minUtes went by the squirrels were in the trees by now so I knew if I heard leaves crunching it wasn’t a squirrels and it’s very dry so they are extra loud it’s was real quiet all of a sudden the Carolina wrens were going crazy for half a minute then all of a sudden I heard leaves crunching and ruffling I knew this was a deer all of a sudden they stop my mind is telling me this is him when all of a sudden I heard leaves crunching 3 grunts back to back my hearts racing I laid my gun across my legs the leaves started by crunching they were getting louder I knew what was about to happen when a doe came hoping like a rabbit constantly running then all of a sudden a second doe came running it was at this moment I knew these were the 2 does I laid my gun up against the edge of my box stand as I rested my gun up I started to look through my scope when out of the corner of my eye I seen the glare of the rack I knew then it was crab claw he was on the move nothing but love on his mind I had to scream two times to get him to stop when he did I knew I only had seconds I seen the crosshairs behind his shoulders and I squeezed fire is all I could see normally when I shoot they drop but I knew I made a good shot but there is always that feeling in the back of my mind I missed so it took my dad a few minutes to get home I had to go get my light I never walk in the woods with a light so we started looking at where I thought he was standing it was at about 120 yards we walked a couple more feet back and we finally got blood my dad was super excited but didn’t like the trail we looked up and there he was 20 yards in the hardwoods we were both super happy we just didn’t want our neighbors to kill him he was even bigger than we thought
Hunter’s name: Michael Morris
Prosperity South Carolina
Newberry, SC
10-28-2025
8-point buck
