Retired professor is latest Bag-A-Buck winner

Charles Joyner’s birthday buck takes December Bag-A-Buck award

All of Charles Joyner’s hard work on a 42-acre hunting property in Granville County, N.C. paid off this year.

Twice.

Joyner, a retired N.C. State professor from Wake Forest, N.C. has planted food plots, fixed logging roads and cut roads through a huge cutover on the 42-acre property. He doesn’t want to think about how much money he’s put into making his sweet spot extra sweet.

“That would be some expensive venison,” said Jordan. He was rewarded with a great 8-point buck on his 73rd birthday, Nov. 27, 2020. Then, he was rewarded again, when he entered Carolina Sportsman’s Bag-A-Buck contest on Dec. 30, and was drawn as the winner of the monthly contest on Jan. 1.

Joyner was hunting from a portable turkey blind he’d assembled on top of a couple of levels of construction scaffolding to give himself a commanding view of a big, 3-year-old cutover. The morning of his birthday, he watched several does leave the cutover and cross a road into some big timber. Five minutes later, the huge buck followed. He drilled him with his Browning BAR .270 at about 100 yards.

This was the fourth Bag-A-Buck contest of 2020

“I was surprised he came out,” Joyner said. “I had a trail-cam picture of him from last season, and I had one in a bachelor group back in September. But I hadn’t seen him.”

For winning the fourth of four monthly contests, Joyner gets a one-year subscription to Carolina Sportsman and a $25 gift certificate to the online Sportsman’s Store. He, along with every other entry, remains eligible for the grand prize: a $50 gift certificate to the online Sportsman’s Store, a three-year subscription to Carolina Sportsman, and a two-day, deer/hog combo hunt for two at South Carolina’s Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge. The winner will be announced later this month.

Joyner is one of six hunters, all retired N.C. State professors, who control the hunting on almost 350 acres in Granville County. Joyner said they’ve cut roads through cutovers, planted food plots, done everything they can to provide benefits for the deer herd.