Grayson Smith wins November Bag-A-Buck

Young hunter’s buck green-scored 160 inches

Grayson Smith of Browns Summit, NC killed a Guilford County giant buck that has been green-scored at 160 inches.

The young hunter entered his buck in the CarolinaSportsman.com Bag-A-Buck Contest in early November, and won the contest for that month.

Smith shot the buck with his Mission by Mathews Crossbow MXB 400 during a mid-October hunt. He had a long history with the buck, observing him on trail cameras for the previous three years, and seeing him on the hoof more than once, including during a hunt in 2023 when Smith had a clean shot at the deer.

“During 2023, this deer that we’d nicknamed ‘Big Mark’ walked out into the food plot and fed through our soybean field,”
he said. “I knew it was him, but when he turned his head, I saw that he had broken off his beam at his G2. I didn’t want to shoot a deer this big but all broken up, so I made the decision to let him go.”

Another buck, a nontypical that Smith had an even longer history with, made that decision a little easier. He made that buck his main target for the rest of the 2023 season, and it panned out for him perfectly.

“I was fortunate enough to harvest the 157-inch nontypical on Dec. 9 of last year, and that closed a 6-year history book of that deer,” he said.

Throughout the offseason, Smith continued feeding his deer herd, hoping Big Mark would stick around and make it through the winter.

“On July 23, I got my first photo of him of 2024. He was in full velvet and had cleaned up into a giant 8 with a small kicker off his G2,” he said.

Fast forward to this season, and Smith almost got a shot at the buck, but he wasn’t comfortable with the angle of the shot, so he held off on shooting.

Then on the afternoon of Oct. 14, Smith was hunting from an elevated lock-on stand in a section of hardwoods overlooking laydowns and white oaks when he finally pulled the trigger on Big Mark.

After seeing three bucks walking out of range, Smith felt sure one was his target buck. So he sat there the remainder of the hunt feeling dejected.

“Then around 6:55, I heard something make a loud cracking noise like it was coming through the laydowns. I looked up and a deer was right there at 25 yards,” he said. “I could tell immediately it was Big Mark.”

Smith shot the buck, gathered a search party, and found it.

“I want to thank the Lord, my dad, and Austin Busick,” he said.

“This was really special, and something I’ll never forget.”