18-point buck goes down in Forsyth County

Buck had multiple drop tines

George Mattison of Trinity, N.C. was hunting with his 4-year-old son from a double ladder stand on Nov. 17 in Forsyth County when he killed the biggest buck he’s ever seen. The 18-point buck had four drop tines on the right side of its antlers, including one that was over 8 inches long.

Mattison had never seen that deer before, not in person, and not on trail cameras.

The hunt started around 5:10 that Saturday evening with Mattison spraying some Tink’s 69. Then he and his son waited as a small doe showed up and milled around, then a spike buck came in.

“Of course at first, my little boy wanted me to shoot the spike, but I told him no, we’d wait and see if we could get something bigger,” he said.

Then something caught Mattison’s eye, and it was no spike buck.

“He came in like a moose, just waving his antlers around with his nose stuck up in the air, I guess smelling that Tink’s. It was a crazy thing to see. I had to do a triple look. It was just such a crazy set of antlers and absolutely the biggest buck I’d ever seen,” he said.

Mattison was getting ready to raise his rifle and take aim, but he said the whole tree and ladder stand were shaking.

“I told my son to quit moving around. I told him he was going to scare the deer away if he didn’t calm down, and my son said ‘dad, I’m not moving,’ and then I looked down and realized it was me. My whole body was just shaking,” he said.

By the time he composed himself enough to take a clean shot, the deer was only 15 yards away. Mattison pulled the trigger on his Marlin .30-30 and dropped the buck on the spot.

“My son wanted to get down right away and see it, but I told him I needed to sit there a minute and calm down. When we got down and walked up to the deer, one of the drop tines was keeping his head up off the ground. Man, that was a sight to see,” he said.

Mattison’s taxidermist green-scored the deer at 173 inches.