'Dog Pen' Buck story

Greg Lawrimore beat the odds when he took down a fine Lowcountry buck that had a wide 22-inch outside spread. Lawrimore lives in Ridgeville and owns a few acres that backs up to the Edisto River on what he calls some beautiful swamp bottomland. He is a longtime dog driver at Eureka Hunt Club who occasionally goes still hunting, and he keeps a pack of 18 dogs in a pen right behind the house. Amazingly, he harvested the Dorchester County trophy buck about 175 yards behind those same dog pens. Using a BuckShot II climbing stand when hunting behind the house, Lawrimore likes to go about 20 feet up an oak tree when still hunting. He does keep a corn pile near the stand location, and while some does were eating at the time he shot the big buck – about 6:15 p.m. on 10/13 – the wide racked 9-point buck that weighed 158-pounds was rubbing a tree next to some Buck Stop 200 doe in heat lure that Lawrimore had put on some leaves of the tree. Just before the buck appeared the woodland critters became very vocal with squirrels barking and crows calling. Larimore was wearing jeans, a camo t-shirt and a turkey facemask when he shot the buck about a minute after he first saw him. Lawrimore had seen a pretty good scrape line that this deer had made about a week before the fateful hunt. Greg knew the scrape was active because twice he pushed some leaves in the scrape and each time he checked back the buck had cleaned it out again. Lawrimore was taught by his father not to leave any human scent near a deer scrape, and that lesson seemed to have paid off. Lawrimore said, “I use a stick to push the leaves into the scrape, careful not to touch anything, and then I actually take the stick out of the woods with me.” Lawrimore said, “I had seen a hoof track that made me think a good buck was in the area, but I had no idea he was this nice. You see I don’t use a scouting camera, and I never will because for me it spoils the excitement of the hunt. I give thanks for the heartfelt adrenaline rush I get when I see a buck like this, and I don’t really want to have any knowledge about what buck I am looking for.” Even though the location could be used as a ‘shotgun stand’ because of the tight location in the woods, Lawrimore used his trusty Remington Model 700 7mm with a Leupold VXIII scope. Lawrimore said, “When I saw this buck I could tell he was an acorn buck or swamp buck because he was very dark in coloration, and his neck was swollen up too. The north wind that was blowing worked perfect for the hunt.” An avid hunter for 25 years, Lawrimore last took a big buck on Thanksgiving day of 1997 – proving that trophy bucks don’t come along just every day. The big buck was taken Cordray’s Venison processing in Ravenel, and taxidermist Kenneth Cordray rough scored the antlers at 143 and 6/8. Lawrimore said, “They always do a great job with the meat for me at Cordray’s and now I’m going to let Cordray’s taxidermy mount my big buck.”  

To view past blog entries about quality buck harvests click here.