13-pointer scores impressive 162 3/8 inches.
Scouting, an unusual-but-effective stand set-up and a dose of patience allowed Scotty Morris of the Mariah community in Person County to harvest a tremendous whitetail buck Monday (Sept. 12), three days after the opening of North Carolina’s archery season.
“Me and my buddy, Kenny MacMahan, had been watching this buck since the middle of the summer,” the 37-year-old Morris said. “We kept seeing (the deer) in the beanfield across the road from my house. I could see him and a couple other bucks in that field nearly every day.”
Morris and MacMahan also had multiple photographs of the buck – which ultimately scored more than 160 inches in full velvet – on trail cameras, but every photo was taken at night. They had also seen the buck on an adjoining farm where his neighbor had a corn pile at a field edge.
“But me and Kenny (lease) a farm with 75 acres of soybeans behind my neighbor, and that’s where we hunt,” he said.
Morris, who uses a Mathews Monster bow and carbon arrows fitted with new 100-grain Swhacker expandable broadheads, had hunted with MacMahan on the Sept. 10 opening day but neither man got a shot at the deer, although both saw the big buck.
“Our stands are about 200 yards apart, and this buck and a 12-pointer we call ‘Sox,’ because he has white (hair) on his ankles, came out about 120 yards from us,” Morris said. “They were feeding in the beans but didn’t come to a corn pile we’ve got at the field edge.”
Morris’ original stand was a ground blind, but MacMahan’s stand was 70 yards from the field edge in a white oak, the only tree left standing on the entire farm.
“The whole farm is cutover and beanfields,” Morris said. “There aren’t any trees on it, except this one, and the deer use the cutover as bedding areas.”
The pair returned the next day but saw only a small 4-point buck.
“My buddy couldn’t hunt Monday, so since the big buck came out between us Saturday, he said I could hunt his stand, if I wanted to,” said Morris, who was facing west that evening, with the sun in his eyes after he climbed into the Gorilla lock-on stand the two hunters had placed in the tree.
“I think (the landowner) didn’t cut the white oak because it had an old wood stand nailed up in it once,” Morris said.
About the time the sun was on the horizon, creating long shadows, two bucks came out of the cutover about 70 yards behind Morris.
The big buck and “Sox” fed in the beans for a while, and then two smaller bucks entered the field behind Morris.
“The two small bucks, I think, smelled me and jumped into the field,” Morris said.
Their motions attracted the attention of Sox, who became curious and started walking toward the younger bucks, and that perked the curiosity of the monster buck.
“The buck came right to me and walked to the bottom of the tree I was in, and so did the bigger one,” Morris said. “I think (Sox) thought the small bucks were reacting to a coyote, because he never acted like he smelled me, and I was sitting right above him.”
Even better, the bruiser buck was drawing closer to the hunter with each passing second.
“Then, he was facing me at 30 yards, but I don’t ever take that shot,” said Morris, the Central Carolina Archery Association’s 2011 3-D points champion.
He drew his bow, noting that the buck would be passing a spot he already had ranged. He put the 20-yard sight pin on the buck’s shoulder and watched the Lumenok arrow bury itself exactly where he aimed.
“I really don’t know what time it was because I didn’t look at my watch the entire time; I was watching the buck,” Morris said. “I expect it was a good 30 minutes before dark.”
The buck bolted across the bean field and disappeared over a small knoll.
“I really thought he’d gone down, but I didn’t want to take a chance, so I sat there until dark, then climbed down and walked to my truck and left,” Morris said.
He waited for two hours at his home, and then he and MacMahan returned along with four or five other friends. They used flashlights to follow a large blood trail and found the buck collapsed after it had run perhaps 50 yards.
“The (non-typical) rack was in full velvet with eight points on the right side and five on the left,” said Morris, who also is a taxidermist and scored the rack himself at 162 3/8 points. “The G2 on the right side has got a mule-deer fork, and it has one sticker off the base that’s scoreable.”
And his hunting partner was happy the buck had been taken.
“The good thing about it is my buddy, Kenny, wasn’t even jealous I killed the buck out of his stand because three years ago he hunted off my stand and killed a 145-inch buck,” Morris said.
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