SC 10-point trophy wins October Bag-A-Buck

He’d been observing the buck for two years

Chas Morton, a 44-year-old hunter from Rock Hill, S.C., got home from vacation on the afternoon of Oct. 27, just in time to spend a few hours in a deer stand on a 90-acre lease in York County.

“At the last minute, I decided to go hunting,” he said. “Since I hadn’t been hunting… for the past week, I had hoped the deer wouldn’t feel pressured.”

Boy, was Morton correct. In his stand at 5 p.m., he was standing over a great 10-point buck by about 6:10, a buck he entered the next day in Carolina Sportsman’s Bag-A-Buck contest — a buck drawn as the winner of the monthly contest for October.

Morton will receive a free, one-year subscription to Carolina Sportsman and a $25 gift certificate to the online Sportsman’s Store. He will be eligible, along with every other contest entry, for the grand prize: a two-year deer/hog combo hunt for two people at Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge in Chesterfield County, S.C., a $50 gift certificate to the online Sportsman Store, a free, three-year subscription to Carolina Sportsman and an Energy Elite bow.

Morton shot the buck with a .270

Morton had been watching the buck for better than two years. He got the buck in trail-camera photos during the 2017 and 2018 seasons and early in the 2019 season.

“He was a main-frame 8-pointer last year with stickers on both bases,” Morton said. “This year, he showed up on camera in the same places. He had added two points, dropped the two kickers and gotten a little wider, but you could tell it was the same buck.”

Morton hadn’t been in his stand long that afternoon before a 4-point buck walked into the food plot he was watching. Around 6, four does arrived. He was watching them when he heard a grunt, looked up, and the 10-pointer was walking in.

“He gave me a perfect shot, and I took it,” Morton said.

One shot from his .270 finished the 162-pound buck, which carried a 19-inch wide rack.