Lake Burton WMA’s Biggest Buck Ever

Rumors of the buck had preceded it, but when Michael Long and his brother finally dragged the buck straight out of the Lake Burton WMA woods of Rabun County and up to the checking station, the Game Management personnel working the hunt still couldn’t believe it. The buck’s rack didn’t look like it belonged to a mountain buck—it was huge.

Michael, of Chatsworth, and his brother had been late getting into the woods that morning. After a 50-minute hike into the Pig Pen Ridge area, it was nearly 8 a.m. before Michael had settled in against a tree trunk behind a screen of brush.

At 9 a.m., he watched four does emerge from a laurel thicket and begin feeding on acorns on the hardwood hillside. Ten minutes later he heard the grunt of a buck trailing the does. Michael got a brief look at the buck and its tall rack before it disappeared in the brush.

Three or four minutes later it reappeared about 45 yards away, facing Michael’s blind and framed between two tree trunks.

Michael lined up square between the buck’s shoulders with his 31-year-old Remington Model 740 .30/06 and squeezed the trigger. The buck bolted, ran about 75 feet and fell.

On Dec. 6, 1989, Michael Long, of Chatsworth, killed this 11-point, 125-lb. buck. It’s the biggest racked buck ever taken from Lake Burton WMA.

Lake Burton WMA All-Time Records