Brief encounter with 195-pound buck works out well for hunter
Joe Clarey of Greer didn’t have time to think when a big Greenville County buck rolled into bow range the morning of Nov. 12, and that was probably a good thing.
At 28 yards, one shot from his Browning bow anchored the 195-pound, 9-pointer, and a second one finished the job.
Three days later, Clarey entered his buck in South Carolina Sportsman’s Bag-A-Buck contest, and on Dec. 1, his entry was drawn as the winner of the November contest. He will receive a free year’s subscription to the magazine and a $25 gift certificate to the magazine’s online Sportsman Outdoor Store.
Clarey, along with everyone else who entered the four-month Bag-A-Buck contest, remains eligible for the grand prize, a two-person, one-day hunt at Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge in Chesterfield County. The draw will be before the Palmetto Sportsmen Classic in Columbia in March.
A Charleston native who has lived in the Greenville area for 12 years, Clarey got to his stand around 5 a.m. on Nov. 12. At around 8:15, he had does come in from behind his stand, then he heard grunting.
“Typically they come in from my left, but they came in about directly behind me,” he said. “The does popped out, and I stood up, then I heard grunting. He was coming in quick on the does.”
Clarey said the buck almost ran in, then stopped behind a doe, long enough that he could use his rangefinder to determine the range, then draw his Browning compound and send an NAP Spitfire broadhead on its way.
“This is the biggest deer I’ve ever shot with my bow, and the biggest deer I’ve ever killed,” he said. “I looked all through my (trail-cam) pix, and I never had a photo of him.”
Click here to read about other big South Carolina bucks.
Click here to enter your big deer into our Bag-A-Buck contest for your chance to win monthly prizes and our year-end grand prize.
