10-point buck harvested in O'burg man drive

B.J. Compton is is 29 years old, started hunting at the age of six with his Dad, and he was just nine when he harvested his first deer. What started out as a friendly traditional hunt on Saturday Dec. 10 ended as a great day. Every year his friends get together at the end of deer season for a traditional man drive on some private property in Orangeburg County. Man drives are a popular practice across the Lowcountry late in the deer season. They met up at 7:30 am to go over their safety plans on how they would conduct the drive. When the first man drive began, deer were jumping up and slipping out of the woods but none came into any openings to present a shot for any standers. For the second man drive they moved down towards the North Edisto River. This tract is a one-year old 90-acre cutover, and the drivers slowly and carefully slipped around to the back of the cutover and got into position to start pushing. Once the last driver got into place, he let out the first holler and the drive began. Immediately shots rang out on the other side of the cutover from the standers. The cutover was just tall enough that you couldn't see across it, but there were stumps about three-feet tall which allowed the drivers to hop up on for a better view. Standing on a stump, B.J. heard something crashing through the weeds and all of a sudden a huge 10-point buck ran right into a skidder lane and stopped at 20-yards from him presenting a perfect broad side shot. He shouldered the Mossberg 835 12-gauge, took aim, and fired. The 3-inch double 00 buckshot took down the buck with the first shot. He went up to him noticed the buck trying to get back onto his feet and so Compton quickly fired a second shot behind the shoulder so that this buck of a lifetime would not get away. After finishing the drive, they looked for another nice buck that was shot at but never found. Also, 135-lb doe was harvested by a young stander. Everyone is very excited about Compton's 10-point buck and B.J. said he knew this deer was definitely going on his wall. His personal best buck carries an 18-inch inside spread, and it weighed 155-lbs. Compton is grateful to have connected on his very nice buck and to have shared this hunt with his friends.

To see past blog entries about fishermen who also tag nice bucks click here.

The 10-point buck was also captured on trail cam