Anderson County hunter takes huge buck after three years of trying

Hunter wanted to take 150-inch brute with bow, but wound up taking him with rifle

Bryan Morgan ended a three-year pursuit of a 150-inch buck on Oct. 13 when the big bruiser stepped out into an open area to run three smaller bucks out of his territory. Morgan took aim with a .308 he had hastily borrowed from his wife and put an end to his pursuit. Surprisingly, Morgan did so with a tad of remorse. It was not the ending of the hunt that he had planned.

“I’ve known about this deer for three years,” said Morgan, who hunts an 80-acre tract of private land adjacent to his house in southern Anderson County. “I’ve got several trail-camera photos of him and have been bow-hunting him since then. I saw him several times but never had a good shot.”

Last year, Morgan saw the deer while hunting with his rifle, but he passed on the opportunity, hoping for another meeting where he could take the brute with a bow. He began hunting the buck hard as soon as bow season opened this year but still never had the right meeting. Unfortunately, news of the buck got around, and Morgan figured if he was going to be the one to take the buck, he needed to get busy, even if that meant giving up on the bow.

“I had gotten wind of this buck showing up on a 40-acre tract across the street,” said Morgan. “I know there were hunters on that property who had photos of him on their cameras and figured the buck was trading between here and there, so I made up my mind I needed to go ahead and kill him if I could.”

After hunting three days in a row, Morgan was running late coming home from his workplace in Greer and was unable to get into the stand until nearly 5:30 p.m., on Monday. He ran to his gun cabinet to find his 257 Weatherby stuck way in the back of the cabinet, and he grabbed his wife’s .308 in his rush.

“I saw three smaller bucks step out into the field about 6:30 p.m., and (they) were sort of acting up,” he said. “It wasn’t too long after that the deer I was after came out and started chasing them off. That’s when he gave me the shot, and I put him down.”

Morgan delivered the buck, which weighed an estimated 220 pounds, to Antler Creations in Lavonia, Ga. Hugh Bryant, the owner of Antler Creations, has green scored the buck at better than 150 inches.