How a Homebound Buck Betrayed a 287-Pound South Carolina Giant

The lesson in this story concerns deer behavior, and it is one you can put to work on your own ground. Archibald Rutledge held that an old buck keeps a home range he loves, and that even after being run out, shot at, or wounded, he returns to that home within a week or ten days. He also believed that an unwounded buck run out again will often retrace the very path he ran the first time. Understanding those two habits is exactly how Rutledge collected a whitetail that weighed 287 pounds after his daughter-in-law missed it clean.

A big buck that escapes a close call is not gone for good, and he is not unpredictable. He will come back, and he will likely follow the same path. Sit that path, stay still, and wait.

The Setup: A Missed Buck and a Standing Invitation

The hunt Rutledge counted as his most thrilling fell in December of 1942, during a month his son Middleton spent on the plantation with his wife Flora and their nine-year-old daughter Elise. Rutledge ran a drive at Wambaw Corner, which he knew as a reliable spot for big bucks, and he positioned the family deliberately. Middleton went on a stand along the old road overlooking the drive, while Flora and Elise walked with Rutledge to an inside stand he called Dogwood Hill.

Rutledge put Flora on a pine stump and handed her a few simple orders: keep away from a book, keep away from a cigarette, and keep her eyes locked on the ground in front of her. He warned that a great buck might slip out ahead of the driver and the hounds. He then set up his own stand at a nearby dry pond.

Less than ten minutes into his own watch, Rutledge heard Flora fire twice, and then heard her scream. For a sickening moment he thought she had shot Elise by accident. She had not. Flora had emptied both barrels at an enormous buck and missed it outright. Elise, who had watched it all, said plainly that her mother never touched the animal.

Before the family left the next day, Flora asked Rutledge for one thing: to go back to that same stump and take the great buck she had missed.

Why He Waited Two Weeks

Rutledge did not rush back. He let two full weeks pass before he returned to the pine stump where Flora had missed.

An old buck driven off his ground will not stay away. Rutledge believed the animal keeps a home range and returns to it within a week or ten days, even after a scare, a shot, or a wound. The two-week delay let the deer resettle into his home country and fall back into his usual movements. Return too soon, and you risk bumping a still-jittery deer out of the area entirely. Give him time, and he comes back to the ground and the routine where he feels safe.

The Stump, the Stillness, and the Return

When Rutledge finally came back, he took Flora’s pine stump and leaned on the buck’s habits. His driver, Prince, worked the hounds down the old road to the far end of the drive to turn them loose.

Rutledge also counted on holding still. In his view a whitetail picks up motion instantly but otherwise relies on its nose far more than its eyes, so a hunter who freezes on a stump or a log can have a deer walk nearly on top of him. Movement is the thing that gives you away; a motionless hunter might as well not be there.

It unfolded the way he thought it would. Rutledge heard the snap of twigs and the heavy pound of hoofs before he spotted the buck. What he saw first were the tall antlers lifting and dropping as the animal pushed through cover. The buck was headed straight at him, with a stand of leafless brush about ten feet high between them.

The deer halted roughly 55 yards out. Rutledge figured the buck had not seen him, since he had stayed motionless. In a lifetime of watching thousands of whitetails, he had never laid eyes on one to match this animal.

The Shot: A Shotgun at the Edge of Its Range

Then the buck wedged himself tight between two big yellow pines, showing nothing but his breast.

That created a real problem. Rutledge was carrying a 12 gauge Parker double with 32-inch barrels, its left-hand shell holding 16 pellets of No. 1 buckshot. He knew what that gun could and could not do. He trusted it to kill at 40 yards, but beyond that, near 50 or 55 yards, the pattern opened up and the outcome grew doubtful. The deer was standing right at that threshold.

There was a second complication. The only opening the buck offered was his breast, and the brisket behind it covered the heart like a plate. Rutledge’s confidence in buckshot came in part from knowing that Africa’s professional hunters reach for buckshot rather than a rifle to stop a charging lion.

He chose to fire in spite of the range. He put his sight on the buck’s breast and squeezed the trigger. At the report the buck reared upright, appearing as massive as an elk and as tall as a pine, then crashed over backward.

But the animal was not done. It got back on its feet and lurched off into a pine thicket too dense for Rutledge to place a clean second barrel. He doubted the wounded buck could travel far after a hit like that, and he was right. The deer that dressed out at 287 pounds was down.

What This Teaches You About Hunting Returning Bucks

When a mature buck escapes a stand, do not write him off. Note the exact route he traveled, because an unwounded buck run out again is likely to run the same line. Then give him time to return to his home range, roughly a week to ten days at minimum, before you sit that route again.

When you do sit it, sit still. A whitetail relies far more on its nose and its eye for movement than on picking out a motionless shape. A hunter who does not move can let a deer close inside good range.

Know your weapon’s honest limits before the moment arrives. Rutledge trusted his shotgun to 40 yards, treated 50 to 55 yards as the zone where buckshot scatters and results turn uncertain, and only took the longer shot because it was the shot he had. Understanding where your own effective range ends lets you decide in advance whether to shoot or wait for a better presentation, rather than guessing when a giant is standing between two pines and offering you nothing but his brisket.

Rutledge, who wrote more than 50 books and served as the first South Carolina poet laureate, set this hunt down in a story titled “My Most Memorable Deer Hunt,” published in Outdoor Life in July 1971.

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