Some deer earn your respect long before you ever wrap your hands around their antlers. This buck was one of them.
I’d been watching him since 2023, when he first showed up as a lanky 2.5-year-old 8-pointer. He had good genetics, big potential, and just enough attitude to tempt me but I passed him multiple times that season, hoping he’d grow into something special. In 2024 he did just that. He blossomed into a sharp, heavy 9-pointer, and I spent the whole season trying to outsmart him. But no matter what I tried, he stayed one step ahead. He crossed where I wasn’t, slipped through when my wind shifted, and danced around every setup I made. By the end of the season, I accepted the truth: he’d beaten me fair and square.
This year, he vanished. Not a picture, not a track, not a hint of him. I started to worry he’d been hit by a car, he was notorious for crossing Hwy 17 every morning like he owned it. Weeks went by with nothing.
Then, on November 10th, he reappeared. My camera lit up with an 8-pointer I knew instantly. Older. Thicker. Wiser. The same buck back from the dead.
He stayed on camera all night and into the early morning of November 15th in the back of a three year old clearcut, and that was all the motivation I needed. I built my plan around the terrain: sneak in crouched low through the broom straw, pop up at daybreak, and take him at 150 yards. Simple enough on paper.
Thirty minutes before legal light, I eased in just like I’d pictured it, crouched and creeping around a pond to the beginning of the clearcut. But the moment I reached my spot, my stomach sank. The small trees I remembered, the ones I intended to use as a rest, weren’t there. I had one chance and option: freehand the shot.
When the clock ticked to shooting time, I rose above the broom straw and started scanning. I struggled to pick him out in the low light until he finally lifted his head. That was all I needed. I settled in as steady as I could, squeezed the trigger, and heard that unmistakable slap of bullet on deer. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a hit.
My brother was sitting back at the club gate, watching everything unfold in real time on his Moultrie app. I called him immediately: “I hit him. I’m pretty sure. But that was all freehand I need help.”
A few minutes later we were on the blood trail headed into the swamp. Halfway in, my brother stopped.
He said, “did you notice my camera? a bear must’ve got it. The door’s missing.”
We kept tracking until we found the buck on an island in the swamp, a heavy-bodied, 120 class deer taken within 200 yards of my back door. Relief hit first. Then celebration.
As we dragged him back out, we passed the “bear-damaged” camera except it wasn’t a bear at all. The bullet had punched through the deer and kept on going, drilling the trail cam putting an hole straight through and ripping the door clean off.
An expensive shot? Absolutely.
Worth it? Without question.
It’s not every day you outsmart a buck that’s outsmarted you for two years straight—and it’s definitely not every day your shot takes down both the deer and the camera watching him. But that’s the kind of hunt that sticks with you, the kind you talk about for years.
And this one was worth every penny.
Hunter’s name: Matt Potter
Ernul NC
Craven NC
11/15/25
8-point buck