November Surprise

Greensboro’s Charlie Green reduced his hunting territory and downed his best trophy.

When Charlie Green of Greensboro ended his competitive bass fishing career, he renewed his interest in white-tailed deer hunting.

Now 67, he’s glad he did, as he bagged one of N.C.’s top muzzleloader bucks last year in southern Guilford County.

“I used to deer hunt a lot,” said Green, who grew up in Strasburg, Va., a small Shenandoah Valley town a few miles south of Winchester. “My family moved down here (Greensboro) when I was 15; my dad worked for Southern Railway.”

As an adult, he sold contractors’ tools to big box stores, then started his own business in 1987. During those years, Green became interested in bass fishing and made a name for himself in North Carolina angling circles, fishing with and against some of the first Tar Heel pro anglers.

“I was a member of the Greensboro Bass Anglers,” he said. “At one time, we had about 300 members.”

His best finish in a major pro tournament came in 1974 when he finished second at the BassMasters’ Virginia Invitational to Woo Daves during Daves’ first tournament victory.

“I had 44 pounds, 5 ounces, and Woo ended up with 47 pounds,” Green said.

Most of his bass-fishing buddies also hunted during the winter. Those friends included guys such as Gary Wade, Paul Chamblee and Chic Aydelette.

“We had places (to hunt) leased all over North Carolina,” Green said. “At one time in Anson County we leased 1,000 acres. We even had a big lease in Hyde County to hunt (black) bears.

“Chic and Paul and I also hunted at Butner way back (in the 1970s) near what they called the ‘Pig Farm.’ We put two cables across a creek and shimmied across, holding one cable and sliding our feet on the other, to get to a spot that nobody else hunted. It was near a creek that had a pretty distinctive name — just say it was a creek that had sewage flowing in it. I expect there’s some guys who hunted back then who know this creek’s name. We killed a bunch of nice deer back there.”

But those days are long gone. Most of the land Green and his friends prowled that once was home to deer and wild turkeys has been broken up into building lots, sold or has houses or businesses sprouting across their landscapes.

Green also lost one of his favorite hunting places with the construction of Jordan Lake.

“A friend of mine back then, Don Hatley, and I used to hunt rabbits where the lake’s at now,” Green said.

“Everything’s been bought, leased or has construction going on now — or in the case of that land at Jordan Lake, it’s under water. I also lost some equipment at my leases — a (trail) camera and a couple of tree stands. I kinda got disgusted with having leases far away where people could take your stuff.”

Today he’s content to hunt with his 38-year-old son, Chuck Green, usually close to home in Guilford County, although he and his son will a take trip to Illinois this month to hunt trophy whitetails.

“I retired about 4 1/2 years ago and quit bowhunting,” said the Lynwood Lakes resident. “I got bored after a couple years of retirement and went back to working with a friend of mine. Then I started deer hunting again.”

Green was at some land about one-half mile from the Randolph County line Nov. 4, 2006, with his son when he bagged his best whitetail trophy last November.

“A friend of mine worked for a timber company that had the land; he gave us permission us hunt,” Green. “He said he’d seen some deer in there, so we thought we’d try it.”

Green and his son don’t like to get to their stands too early because of the chance of spooking deer with a flashlight or being too noisy.

“It was around 6:15 a.m.,” he said, “a good morning to hunt, with the temperature in the low 30s. I like going (to go a stand) with a little daylight instead of using a flashlight and making too much noise.”

Once he arrived at his stand (his son was about 300 yards away), Green climbed up to a Loc-On style perch.

“My son puts (stands) up in nose-bleed territory, so I was about 25 or 30 feet off the ground,” he said. “The ladder (steps) doesn’t reach all the way to the top, so my son put screw-in steps about 6 more feet to where the stand was (seated against the tree). When I got up there, I hooked my safety harness to the tree and I was ready.”

Green used a rope to pull up his muzzleloader, a Thompson Center smoke pole with a Nikon scope. He’d loaded the gun with powder pellets and a 245-grain Powerbilt saboted lead bullet.

The stand was in a tree on the side of a ridge overlooking a bottom.

“There was a lot of hardwoods and acorns, but toward the bottom it was really thick (with undergrowth),” he said. “The nice thing about this stand is there’s a big cedar tree growing up beside it that gave me good cover. I’d trimmed out a few places to see through.”

It was so cold Green put on thick gloves after hanging his rifle in a holder he’d attached to the side of the tree.

At about 7:30 a.m., he heard a noise, then saw some movement at the other side of the cedar and down the hill from his position.

“I kind of eased my head around, trying to see around the cedar,” Green said. “What I first saw was the buck’s head turning, but I couldn’t see his body. He was about 40 yards away. I kept looking, but the deer didn’t move. I thought, ‘Doggone it, you gotta move a little and clear this cedar so I can see what you are.’ ”

After a few more minutes, the cautious buck took a step or two and revealed its body and headgear to Green.

“I remember thinking at the time, ‘Now, that’s a shooter buck,’ ” he said. “But he was acting real cautious.”

Green reached for his TC Omega rifle, but he’d forgotten he’d put on his gloves. Once he had the gun in his hands, he couldn’t force his finger through the trigger guard.

“I slipped the glove off real slow,” he said, “hoping the buck wouldn’t see my movement. I eased the glove into my left hand that was holding the forearm of my muzzleloader.”

However, Green said he’d also forgotten something equally as important — his breath was making small vapor clouds because of the cold, and he’d created a thin film of condensation on the unprotected lens of his scope.

“All these years I’ve been hunting, and I didn’t think about fogging the lens of my scope by breathing on them, but that’s exactly what I did,” he said. “So I got this great buck 40 yards from me, and he doesn’t know I’m anywhere in the world — and I can’t shoot him because my scope’s fogged up.”

Green didn’t want to try to reach for a handkerchief in his pocket, so he slowly moved the glove he was holding in his left hand to his right hand. Then he began to rub the lens of his gun’s scope, trying to wipe enough moisture away so he could see through the Nikon eyepiece and take aim at the big buck.

Luckily for Green, he was so high in the tree and so well-camouflaged by the cedar boughs, the big deer didn’t see his movements, nor hear his mutterings under his breath as he scolded himself for making what could have been telling mistakes.

“I just knew at any minute (the buck) was gonna see me move and take off,” the hunter said. “Then I would have been really angry.”

Incredibly, the deer stood still for several more minutes, then took a few steps, revealing more of its body to the hunter.

“By then I’d crammed the (extra) glove into my shirt pocket and wiped off the scope lens,” Green said. “Now I could see him from the shoulder up, and that’s where I put the crosshairs (of his scope), on the (deer’s) shoulder.”

The buck, standing about 40 yards away and down the hill from Green’s location in his tree stand, dropped like a rock when the veteran hunter pulled the trigger.

“I saw him go down before the smoke blew away,” he said. “He was standing broadside to me, but I was almost shooting straight down. (The bullet) hit him between the shoulder blades, and he hit the ground like a ton of bricks.”

Green reloaded his TC Omega and remained sitting in his tree stand.

“I didn’t think he’d get up, but I re-loaded just in case,” he said. “You never know what a deer will do.”

After 6 or 7 minutes of waiting and watching the motionless buck, Green said he felt comfortable the deer wouldn’t scramble to its feet and run away. The hunter lowered his rifle to the ground and climbed down from the elevated stand.

“I was surprised to see somebody coming toward me (in the woods),” Green said. “I didn’t know who it was. I thought ‘what the heck is this guy doing?’ The guy walked up and said, ‘You like to have scared the dickens out of me when you shot. I had no idea you were in this country.’ ”

Green said the sudden appearance of another hunter wasn’t exactly expected by him either.

The other hunter had been at adjoining land where he had permission to hunt, not far from Green’s stand — but not on Green’s hunting land, which was a relief.

“My son, who was in the creek bottom, had heard the shot and also came over to see what had happened,” Green said.

The other hunter said he’d seen some big deer at his adjoining property but hadn’t spotted this particular buck in the past.

“The only decent deer we’d ever seen was walking on the place when someone shot a nice six-pointer but left it lying in a field,” Green said. “Most likely a night-hunter, a poacher.”

Chuck Green was stunned by the size of antlers sprouting from the head of his dad’s buck, particularly their width. The outside spread later was measured at 24 inches complemented by an inside spread of 21 3/8 inches. The rack’s main beams measured 27 6/8 and 24 6/8 inches while the G1s were 6 4/8 and 7 2/8 inches. The G2s were 9- and 10-inches long, respectively, while the G3s were 5 4/8 and 5 inches. The rack lacked brow tines on both sides.

Circumference sizes (H measurements) were 3 4/8 inches on both sides (H1s), 4 2/8 and 3 6/8 (H2s), 3 2/8 (both H3s), and 3 and 2 3/8 inches (H4s). The buck sports a 1 7/8-inch odd “sticker” point on the right side G2.

The buck totaled 145 7/8 inches by the Buckmasters scoring method (Green didn’t take the rack to the March 2007 Dixie Deer Classic because his taxidermist hadn’t finished the shoulder mount). However, an unofficial B&C non-typical score totaled 139 4/8 inches.

“Daddy, do you know what you’ve just done?” Green’s son said once he reached his father that day. “You’ve just killed your deer of a lifetime.”

“Rack size doesn’t bother me much anymore,” the elder Green said. “I don’t get as nervous as I used to when I see them. And I’m pretty selective now too. I’ve got no problem letting a six-pointer walk off. Besides, I really didn’t see (the rack) all that good before I shot; this deer’s rack blended in really well with the underbrush.”

But Green laughed when he thought about his sudden increase in reputation as a deer hunter.

“I’m no Roger Ragland or somebody like that,” he said. “I’m just a guy who loves being outdoors as much as I can be.

“I was just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time last November. My son was right; it is my buck of a lifetime.”