Alison Morton is a straight-A student and Presidential award winner for volunteering. Soon she'll be a student at East Carolina University.
The senior at Leesville Road High School has hunted by herself for three years, but said she had never experienced anything like the 12-point buck she killed the weekend after Thanksgiving.
"It was just so crazy," Morton said. "I thought that another hunter had killed my buck. When I saw him the day after Thanksgiving, it just felt different. I knew I had to get out there for a reason."
After watching the same buck on a trail cam for three months, Morton said she began to wonder if she would ever find her deer in the tree stand deep in the woods of Northern Granville County.
"It started getting kind of discouraging," she said. "We kept seeing him on the trail cam, it was like he was posing almost. But when we went out to go hunting we couldn't find him."
Morton, 18, said she arrived home the day after Thanksgiving and saw the buck she has searched for pop up on the camera. She knew she needed to make her way out to the tree stand she called, "The Killin' Tree."
Morton said she used to go out to the woods with her father, Jason Morton, just to watch and study deer and other animals. Those years of studying deer helped her to finally find her buck.
"I could see a doe through my scope and was just thinking to myself, 'This could be it. My deer could be behind all of them,' " Morton said. "I knew that with a bunch of doe going ahead, that meant there was a bigger buck behind them. Then I started to get really excited and nervous all at the same time. Right once he stepped out, I shot and he did what I call, 'the death kick.'
"Then I called my dad immediately and told him, 'It's the one on the cam. I think I got him.' "
By this time, it was too dark to find the buck. So Morton and her father, other members of her family, and her beagle, Lucky, went out the next morning to search for her kill.
The search
The first sign of the deer was picked up by Alison Morton's cousin, Mason.
"He screamed out, 'I found blood!' " Alison Morton said. "It was literally only the size of a freckle. But without him finding that, I don't know that we would have found my buck."
The spots kept getting bigger until it was clear that the buck had tired. Around that time, Morton said she was caught off guard when Lucky, not usually a tracking dog, made a howling sound and started leading the group.
"My dad's arms were ripped (from searching through the brush) because he was wearing a sleeveless shirt," Morton said. "And we weren't even in the thickest part yet. We had to cross the road into another person's land where the trail got thinner and the briars got thicker.
"We had to rip vines and briars just to take two steps."
After a three-hour search, Morton tracked the wounded deer and had a clear shot. But with a few people leaving the search, Morton wanted to make sure that she wouldn't put others in harm's way.
"My shot was facing the road where some of my family was still sitting," Morton said. "I called my dad and made sure everyone was out of the way. So then, I took the shot and heard a loud grunt and all I said was, 'Yes!' "
The Boone and Crockett score for the 12-point buck was an estimated 142 when the Morton's took the buck to have it sent off. The winner last year in her division of the Dixie Deer Classic was a 147, but second place went to a buck that scored 142.
Making her father proud
Morton started going out to the woods with her father before the age of 5, but didn't start truly hunting with him until she was 14.
"I knew this was special for her," Jason Morton said. "So, before we ever got started, I gave her my blaze orange hat and told her, 'This is your deer. You've worked too hard for someone else to find him before you do.' "
The proud father said this moment was a product of his daughter's patience and hard work throughout the years.
"She's passed up a lot of good bucks over the years in hopes that one day they would grow into great bucks," Jason Morton said. "It was almost like, after 30 years, finally passing on the torch to my daughter.
Morton said it would be an honor to win the women's division of the Dixie Deer Classic next month, but she is content with having a 12-point rack on her wall.
"I'm just glad I have one in the contest," Alison Morton said. "Entering my deer into the contest was not even on my mind when we were searching for him. I've already got the wall picked out in my room where his head will go.
"I know what I've done, and I'm proud of that."
