Rack was missing G-3s, but still scored over 130-inches
Tracey Wyrick of Albemarle readily admits that about the only part of him killing an enormous 6-point Stanly County buck two weeks ago that he can take credit for was knowing the wind direction, time he spent in a ladder stand one afternoon, and the actual shot.
Wyrick had knee surgery on Aug. 31, and two of his hunting buddies, Chris Friguglietti and Rusty Melton, took care of his stands, got all his stuff ready, helped him on Sunday, Oct., 11, when he went into the woods, did some scouting and put up a ladder stand, then helped him get the buck out after his perfect, 9-yard shot on Oct. 14.
“They really took care of me and helped me,” Wyrick said. “After the surgery, I hadn’t been allowed to hunt, and when I finally got out, I went out and find some sign and they put the stand up for me and then helped me get the deer out. They got my stands ready on my area of the property, and without them, I’d never have taken this deer. It was only my second time hunting. We put that stand up on Sunday and I killed the deer a few days later.”
And what a deer it was. Wyrick, who works at Montgomery Community College, took the buck to some of the guys in the school’s taxidermy program, and when they laid a tape measure on it, the numbers were astounding. The deer scored better than 130 inches, with 25-inch main beams, a 19 1/2-inch inside spread, brow tines around 5 inches, G-2s that measured 10 inches and bases that were better than 5 inches in circumference.
“I don’t want to take anything away from this deer, and I’ll never kill another 6-pointer like him, but if he’d just had those G-3s, there’s no telling what he might have scored,” said Wyrick, who look the buck with a single shot from his Mathews Z7 bow, the Muzzy MX3 broadhead doing enough damage to drop the buck within 25 yards.
Wyrick has had access to the property he was hunting for about 10 years, a mixture of cutover and mature pines and hardwoods. He said there were trail-camera photos of the huge 6-pointer, but from a different part of the property. He never imagined that when he found some promising sign and climbed his ladder stand — the only kind of elevated stand he can use while recovering from his knee surgery — that he’d run into that particular deer.
“I have about 20 stands, and during the day, I put in their numbers on this app, HuntStand. I knew the wind was gonna be perfect for that stand, that evening,” he said. “I was in between a bedding area and a feeding area. This time of year, if I can get in an area like that, I feel pretty good.”
“I killed him about 7 p.m.,” Wyrick said. “He and another deer were working into this little area where I was hunting. I had a couple more deer around me, but I could see those two deer up the hill from me working their way down.”
When the big buck presented a good shot, Wyrick took it. The buck tried to turn around and run back up the hill, but it went down before it got out of Wyrick’s vision.
“It’s a beautiful deer,” he said. “Last year, I killed a 6-pointer that weighed 210 pounds. We have managed this property for a while, and we take only mature bucks. The body size of our bucks has gone up tremendously over the pasts three or four years.
“I like to hunt local and try to give ‘em the time to grow up. if you let them mature and grow ‘em, they’ll be nice.”
Click here to read about other big North Carolina bucks.
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