It was my second hunt of the 2025 season on a cool fall afternoon in Florence County SC. We have had several good bucks on cam on this stand. On our walk in we set off a buck bomb in hopes we could lure one of our shooter bucks in. As the sun faded no deer to speak of… suddenly a vision of a rack seemingly floated across the broom straw field. I raised my gun to find this shooter buck looking for a hot doe. As the scope leveled on him, I slowly squeezed the trigger. He ran into the woods. As we got on the ground to go look for him, our 2 only flash lights died. Oh no! Unable to see, we backed out and headed home. Sickness set in as we relived the moment of shooting this deer. Feeling confident of a good shot we decided to go to Walmart for more flashlights and headed back. Once arriving back in the woods we were finally on his trail. As we looked for blood I felt that sick feeling again… No blood could be found. We had no clue which way this deer could have gone because we lost sight of him behind a brushy oak tree. So I angled down a path and I disappeared into the woods. Within 5 steps the tremendous sight of this buck piled up came into sight. It was the buck that almost wasn’t for sure for me!
Hunter’s name: DeDe Lowder
Lake City SC
Florence County
10/16/25
7-point buck
