Preacher’s Buck

A Person County minister had his best deer season in 2005, capped by one of the state’s top archery trophies.

Matthew Rummage didn’t attend the awards ceremony at March’s Dixie Deer Classic.

His no-show was unusual — category winners don’t often miss the trip to Raleigh to receive awards during Sunday’s final session of the nation’s oldest deer exposition. And Rummage’s buck already had been scored and certified as the Classic’s No. 1 typical-rack bow kill of 2005 in North Carolina.But he had to attend a revival that Sunday afternoon at Bethany Baptist Church near Moriah, a small community in the southeastern corner of Person County. It was an event he couldn’t miss because Rummage is pastor of the church.

“I’ve been the pastor at Bethany Baptist for 3 1/2 years,” said the 30-year-old Rummage, a native of Maiden in Catawba County.

His absence at the Classic’s final ceremony clearly showed his priorities — church comes before everything else.

“I like to bow hunt,” he said. “but I hope my church members know I don’t spend a lot of time (hunting). Getting this buck was just a matter of luck and timing.

“During archery season, I hunt Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, just like anyone with a ‘regular’ job. If I don’t have a lot of (church) work to do and a cold front comes through, or it rains overnight and cools things off during a mid-week day, I might get in the woods early the next morning and sit in my stand an hour or two. But it’s not something I do every day; actually, I hunted very little last year.”

Rummage shot his buck, which was a typical 5×5 frame with 137 2/8 inches of antlers, Saturday, Oct. 29, a perfect time to find a prerut piedmont monster roaming the woods.

The minister said he hadn’t seen the deer previously; he was just enjoying a Saturday afternoon fall hunt.

“The good thing was the timing,” Rummage said. “The rut (mating season) was just before getting ready to hit high gear.”

The Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate said he was fortunate and blessed to be able to hunt deer near his home.

“If I can find time to go hunting, it’s just a short four-wheeler drive to my area,” he said.

He’s even more fortunate to be hunting whitetails in southern Person County because that region in the north-central piedmont near the Timberlake community obviously has top-notch deer habitat and a gene pool that produces great bucks.

A retired Hickory public-schools teacher, Don Rockett, killed the state-record non-typical buck (228 4/8 inches) near Timberlake during 1998. And the previous non-typical record buck, a 209 2/8 monster, was killed by Roxboro’s Stuart Gentry two years earlier, a few miles north near Hyco Lake.

Rummage’s favorite spot is a private farm where he has permission to hang his stands, a short ride from his home.

“It’s got hardwood forests and farm land,” he said. “There are no houses.”

Rummage said he’d hunted the area the last several years but didn’t see much buck sign.

Even during 2005, the only indications of a big deer at the property weren’t that impressive.

“The only thing that gave me hope (a nice buck was in the area) was a couple of small saplings (discovered during walks to and from his stand),” he said. “(The small tree trunks) were about the size of a quarter (in diameter) and broken off at the top. Several were twisted and broken, like the buck had gouged his antlers in them and twisted them.

“Even then, all I really knew was a buck had been there. It wasn’t big sign, but it was some sign of a buck.”

The previous season, Rummage said, he saw the same buck he arrowed — but not at this area and not with his eyes.

“I had a trail camera set up about a half-mile away at another place I hunted,” he said. “I got (a picture of) the buck on that camera. I didn’t realize it was the same deer until after I walked up on him the day I got him.

“Before I shot, it didn’t occur to me I’d see him a year later, a half mile from where the trail-cam took his picture. I never thought that deer would be where I was, mainly because the camera took the picture during late November. I thought the buck would be in his home territory.”

Although white-tailed bucks don’t usually stray far from their customary stomping grounds, November is a prime time for them to travel. Although the rut peaks across piedmont North Carolina during the first couple weeks of November, a stray doe or two may not be bred during that time. So bucks spend a lot of time traveling throughout the month, even into December, trying to track females coming into estrous again.

However, Rummage wasn’t thinking about the rut last October. He was doing what he should have been — hunting a food source he knew would lure does into the area, with a buck likely to follow.

“I was sitting in a grove of white oak trees that were dropping acorns,” he said.

Rummage said he had a couple more stands, but he was hunting the white oaks because he knew whitetails love those acorns more than any other variety.

“I always use little Loc-On stands,” he said. “I know you shouldn’t encourage people to do it, but I have a set of pole-climbers I use (to climb trees and attach stands).”

The climbers, similar to the devices telephone repairmen regularly used before power-lift buckets became popular, help bow hunters shinny up trees and place stands. A hunter who knows how to use climbers can place a Loc-On stand in a tree much quicker than using screw-in steps or a climbing stand.

“The (white oak) acorns usually fall in late September, but they didn’t fall last year until October,” Rummage said. “Some other buck-oak acorns fell the second week of October. I killed a nine-pointer that week.”

One other aspect about Rummage — he’s a bow-hunter, period. He uses a stick and string throughout the four-month-long deer season, only taking up a firearm when muzzle-loader season removes all other weapons from N.C.’s deer woods.

“I’ve been doing archery since the 6th or 7th grade,” Rummage said. “That’s when I started shooting a bow, although I was hunting by the 4th grade.

“A friend of mine in Maiden used to shoot (using archery equipment). We actually shot arrows more than we hunted.”

Today Rummage uses a Mathews Switchback bow cranked to 65 pounds and Easton ACC arrows tipped with three-bladed 100-grain Muzzy broadheads.

His practice sessions begin during early September and by October increases to 15 or 20 shots a day at a backyard target.

“It’s usually just so hot during September, I don’t hunt a lot then; I mostly practice,” he said.

Rummage said he easily can hit a pie-plate-size target at 40 yards — even at 50 yards — “but you don’t get an opportunity to take long shots where I hunt. It’s too thick (with limbs, brush, trees). Besides I’d never shoot at a deer 50 yards away.”

With his wife out of town Oct. 29 and a friend’s daughter caring for his daughters, who are 2 and 5 years old, Rummage climbed aboard his four-wheeler for a ride to his stand.

“I left the house about 4:45 p.m. and was in my stand by 5,” he said.

The white oak copse was bordered on a couple sides by thickets, “which made it even better,” Rummage said. “The deer bed in the thickets, about 40 to 50 yards from the white oaks. It’s also pretty flat so you can see in all directions.”

Although the forest floor around his 20-foot-high stand was surrounded by signs of feeding deer — nuzzled and pawed leaves, droppings and a couple of small rubs — Rummage said he didn’t believe the buck ambled over to fill its belly. And Rummage doesn’t use doe-in-heat attractant scents, although he does wash his hunting clothes in a neutral-scent solution.

“I really think he came to my ‘horns,’ ” Rummage said. “I use (rattling) horns and grunt calls a lot.”

A year ago, Rummage said after he told a friend about his bow-hunting hobby, his friend advised the preacher to use a grunt call in combination with rattling horns.

“He said he never goes into the woods without his (rattling) horns,” Rummage said. “I use deer antlers; I think the sound they make is real. I’ve had several bucks come to them during October and November.”

Rummage said Oct. 29 was a typical fall day, with temperatures reaching into the 70s during by midday, then cooling quickly as evening approached.

“I think deer don’t move that much when it’s hot,” he said. “Usually they’ll move when it gets cool in the evening.”

His rattling sequence is to clash his antlers together for “15 or 20 seconds” then to watch the woods for 10 or 15 minutes. If he gets no response, he rattles again, continuing the sequence until it’s time to climb down.

“If I’m hunting in the evening, I try to be rattle about 30 minutes before dark,” Rummage said. “That time seems to get the best responses. If I’m hunting in the morning, I usually wait 30 or 45 minutes (between rattling).”

About 5:45 p.m., the hunter heard a deer’s footfalls approaching his tree from the rear.

“I honestly believe he came to the horns,” Rummage said. “He had the posture for it; he looked the same as every buck that’s come to my horns. He was in a slow, steady walk, his head in the alert position.”

The deer approached Rummage’s stand from the left rear.

“I was able to turn my head and look,” Rummage said. “I got a glimpse; he was coming straight to my tree.”

With the tree between him and buck, Rummage slowly eased to a standing position, his back sliding against the tree.

“I remember thinking ‘I’ve got to let him ‘clear’ me,’ he said. “I didn’t want to shoot straight down on him.”

Rummage said when the deer got within 5 yards, things almost fell apart.

“He spooked, then turned and ran about 15 yards,” he said, “then he started walking broadside, 20 yards from me through some thick stuff. I pulled back (the bowstring) and scrunched down to try to see him; I was almost on my knees. I was hoping he’d walk into an open area — and he did.”

Rummage’s practice sessions and shooting experience paid off as his arrow zipped through an opening and hit the buck behind the shoulder, a perfect arrow placement.

“He ran 35 or 40 yards into the thicket, and I could hear him thrashing (on the ground),” Rummage said. “It happened quickly.”

But the hunter still didn’t have an idea about the buck’s headgear.

“When I saw him the first time behind me, it was only for two or three seconds,” he said. “He looked up real quick, turned, and I was able to see he had really long G2s, but that was all.”

When Rummage climbed down from his stand and found the deer in the thicket, he realized he had a fine trophy, one he’d seen earlier in his trail-cam photo.

The almost-perfect 10-point typical basket rack with a 16-inch inside spread had G2s measuring 10 1/2 inches, although the brow tines were only 3 1/2 and 5 inches. The G3s were 10 and 8 inches in length, and the G4s were 5- and 6-inches long.

“I guess the first thing that shocked me was this (buck) was the one I had a picture with my trail camera,” Rummage said. “I’d always wanted to get a buck that would make the books, score Pope&Young.”

Rummage, who said he’d killed 30 whitetails during the past, said he’d never downed a deer with a rack to compare to his November trophy.

“I enjoy bow hunting,” he said. “It means a lot to me. I’m lucky to live in rural area where people also hunt because I haven’t caught any grief over it.

“Maybe too, with my family and this ministry, people would never believe it. I just hope people won’t think all I do is hunt. I like hunting, but my passion is to serve the Lord and tell people about Jesus.

“Being lucky enough to take a buck like this just means I was really blessed last year. It was my best-ever year. Every time I went, I saw deer, and I had a good time. I just think it came from putting my family first and not myself.”