Alternate route leads Belews Creek hunter to 144-inch, 12-point buck

5×5 mainframe buck had two kicker points on left G2

When Brandon Dimont of Belew’s Creek, NC jumped a big buck on his usual path to his box stand on the opening weekend of muzzleloader season, he knew he would need to find an alternate route for the future. Two weeks later, on Nov. 11, he snuck in the back way and laid down a 144-inch, Alamance County 12-point.

Taking the long way around that morning cost Dimont an extra 10 minutes of travel time, making him a little late climbing into the stand after rubbing some nearby limbs with a VS-1 scent stick.  Around 7 a.m., he glanced to a creek that cut through the 120 acres he was hunting and saw a small 4-point that seemed unusually nervous before bolting from the area. Shortly after, 3 does appeared in a patch of tall grass, continuously looking behind themselves as they grazed. They soon walked away and Dimont was left with vacant woods until 9:25.

“I looked up into my food plot and here comes the normal little 3-point and spike that I always see,” said Dimont. “I was sitting there taking pictures of them with my cell phone when I looked up and just see white horns behind a tree. I threw my binoculars up and I saw his right side — the 5 points. I thought it was the buck I had gotten on camera. He turned his head and I could see that flyer coming off the left side. I just slid the window open and talked myself through it. ‘Brandon, this is the biggest deer you’ve seen hunting, just don’t screw it up.’”

With his Remington 700 .30-06 propped on the window sill, Dimont peered through his scope as the buck remained partially hidden behind a poplar tree in a thicket near the plot. As it began to back away, the buck turned its head, exposing just enough of the front shoulder for Dimont to place the crosshairs on it between the branches. He pulled the trigger, and his 168-grain Sierra Matchking bullet slammed into the target at 70 yards.

“He started running and I didn’t know if I hit him,” said Dimont. “I sat there and was replaying everything. I was freaking out. I’m like, ‘Just relax, you shot the biggest deer you’ve ever seen.’

“I sat for 20 to 30 minutes to make sure he was dead. I called my dad and told him to wait before he brought the tractor. I had to go back by where I saw him running to; I wasn’t actually tracking him. I was going back up the tractor path and he was just lying there. He ran about 30 yards.”

Dimont’s buck weighed 187 pounds. It is a mainframe 10-point with 2 kicker points coming off the left G2, which is broken off above them. One kicker is 4 inches long, the other is 2 inches long. The inside spread spans 16 ½ inches wide and the longest tine is an 11-inch G3.