Lifetime Buck

Jordan Barnes of Eden bagged 2005’s top youth muzzleloader trophy.

Jordan Barnes isn’t a run-of-the-mill 10-year-old boy.

And the whitetail buck he met one afternoon in a Rockingham County cutover wasn’t a run-of-the-mill 10-pointer.So it’s no surprise the two got together. Just stir in a father who was thrilled for his son to have a shot at a nice deer, add a dash of doe in heat, cook it with a 150-grain charge of black powder and, pow, you’ve got a recipe for the biggest buck taken in North Carolina by a young hunter during the 2005 season.

Jordan Barnes was a fifth-grader at an elementary school in his hometown of Eden last Nov. 8, opening day of blackpowder season for N.C.’s central deer section. Because it was Saturday, Chris Barnes decided to take his boys, Jordan and 8-year-old Cody, into the woods.

Chris and Cody went hunting that morning. That afternoon, when Chris climbed back into his tree stand, Jordan accompanied him.

Within 30 minutes, Jordan had a buck on the ground that won the Best in Youth category at the Dixie Deer Classic this past March, a tall 10-point buck that scored 148 6/8 Boone & Crockett Club points.

“I’ve got about 25 different places to hunt around home,” the elder Barnes said. “This place was about an 80-acre farm, and we were hunting a cutover.

“I didn’t have any idea this buck was in there. I’d killed a good one in there (in 2003), but I had a (trail) camera on the place, and I knew I had a seven-pointer in there with a little drop tine — actually, I had two seven-pointers in there.”

Chris Barnes admitted he was looking forward to seeing the seven-pointer with the drop tine when he and Jordan put their Old Man climbing stand on a big hardwood tree at the edge of the cutover and climbed up about 35 feet.

“I had seen some nice rubs in the woods — trees as big around as your forearm,” he said. “It looked to me like they’d been bedding in the hardwoods. I think they were coming back into the cutover to feed.”

Chris and Jordan, wearing safety harnesses, were sitting in the climber. The father had been taking his boys with him during hunting excursions for years.

Jordan said he was about 2 years old when he first went hunting with his father, and he’d already taken “about 10 or 12” deer before his meeting with the big buck last fall.

The cutover the Barneses were watching was a fairly new one — it had been cutover only recently, so there was no trouble watching deer move through it. Some white oaks were in the hardwoods behind the stand, and Chris Barnes figured deer were bedding down in the comfort of the big woods, feeding on acorns, then venturing out in the cutover to feed on new green growth.

It didn’t take long before a doe appeared at the right side of the stand, moving out of the woods and into the cutover. Something about the way she walked alerted the father that killing her wasn’t the best idea, so he told his son to hold up.

“The doe came out, and her tail was sticking out and to the side,” the youth said. “It was the first time I’d actually seen one I knew was in heat — I’ve heard people say they lay their tails straight out. I wouldn’t let Jordan shoot her.”

“I was going to shoot (the doe), but my daddy told me not to, so we waited, and then we heard the buck.”

“I almost fainted when I saw him,” Chris’s dad said. “He was tall and heavy — and he was huge.”

The buck was about 30 seconds behind the doe, which was headed across the cutover toward a nearby house. The buck had its nose to the ground, trailing the doe, and Chris Barnes didn’t hesitate. With the buck about 60 yards away, he told his to let him have it.

“I put my arm on the tree trunk so Jordan could lay the gun on it, and I held my grunt call in my other hand,” he said. “I grunted one time, and he looked up.”

The Quaker Boy grunt call stopped the buck just long enough for the boy to put the crosshairs of the Leopold scope on his side. He made a perfect broadside shot with the .45-caliber TC Omega, the 250-grain PowerBelt bullet going through the buck’s lungs.

“I was watching the doe, and as soon as I turned around, he came around the trees and jumped out in the open,” the boy said. “I thought he was just a heckuva eight-pointer. I didn’t know he was a 10-pointer.

“I got him in my scope, and I was shaking so hard I could barely shoot, but I just shot. I guess it was just the right time to pull the trigger.”

The smoke from the blackpowder gun obscured their view for a few seconds. At first, Chris Barnes thought his son had missed the shot because the next time he saw the buck, it was about 50 yards away, running across the cutover in the direction the doe had taken.

“We could see him running off, but he stopped, then he started staggering, and we both about jumped out of the tree,” he said.

With the buck down about 50 yards from where he’d been shot, the father and son decided to stay in the tree a few minutes — if only to calm down.

“It was exciting,” the youngster said. “He was the biggest buck I’ve ever seen, and it felt real good just to be able to see him.”

When they finally got down out of the tree, the 10-year-old didn’t run over to see the buck.

“I sprinted,” he said.

When they got there, father and son realized the deer was a huge 10-pointer, a buck with a tall, heavy rack that had a 15-inch inside spread but 12-inch-long back tines.

“Daddy had to drag him,” the boy said. “I had to hold the gun while Daddy dragged him; I couldn’t believe it. I finally grabbed his horns and held on.”

The boy had taken a few bucks before last season; his first one, at age four, was a spike, and his biggest previously was a five-pointer.

Chris Barnes didn’t weigh the buck, but estimated it at about 190 pounds.

“I’ve killed a deer that weighed 190, and this deer was every bit as big as that one,” he said. “He may have been bigger, but I don’t want to say for sure.”

A closer look at the area led Chris Barnes to believe the big buck hadn’t been there long. He said the big rubs he found in the hardwoods were extremely fresh, then he found a line of rubs coming out of some bottom land, up the hill to the hardwoods where he’d set up his stand.

“He’d evidently just gotten in there; the day we went in and killed the deer was the first time I’d seen some of those big, fresh rubs in there,” he said. “He’d torn some trees to pieces.

“There’s a bottom, and I found rubs coming up out of the bottom. I reckon he came up out of there and into the hardwoods and the cutover after that doe.”

The place he was hunting with his son had another characteristic Chris Barnes really liked — nearby houses.

“A bunch of the big bucks I’ve killed have been killed out of places that were close to a lot of houses,” he said. “Jordan’s buck probably fell 60 yards from somebody’s back deck. The doe had gone into somebody’s back yard, and the buck was going to follow her.”

As one might expect, the young hunter is button-busting proud of his big buck.

“He’ll never let us hear the end of it,” his father said. “I’ve got some big ones; I’ve got a trophy room where I keep all of them, but I don’t have one that scores nearly as good as Jordan’s does.”

Now, he just as to find a big one for his 8-year-old, Cody, who shares the blackpowder gun with Jordan. The two boys shoot the same saboted bullets, but Jordan shoots a 150-grain powder load, and Cody shoots a 100-grain load.

“I have a hard time keeping the scope adjusted for both of them,” their dad said.

So that leaves the Barnes’ men ready for the 2006 season.

Does the 10-year-old believe another big buck is out there with his name on it?

“I hope to get another one this year — Daddy’s got enough big ones,” he said.

Chris Barnes would be happy to oblige.

“I don’t mind at all,” he said. “It’s kind of neat to have them hunting with me.”