Minor league pitcher is Bag-a-Buck winner

Bowhunter killed two huge bucks 10 minutes apart

All in all, it’s been a great year for 23-year-old Hunter Harvey of Catawba, N.C.

The son of retired major-league pitcher Bryan Harvey, he began the 2018 baseball season with the Baltimore Orioles before spending most of the season with the O’s Class AA farm club in Bowie, Md.

On Sept. 23, hunting on a lease in Granville County, Harvey arrowed a pair of trophy bucks less than 10 minutes apart. The 10-pointer and 11-pointer, which scored 138 5/8 and 139 inches, respectively, fell about 20 yards apart.

Then, one of his hunting buddies, Jacob Brakefield, entered Harvey’s bucks in Carolina Sportsman’s Bag-A-Buck contest. His entry was drawn as the winner of the magazine’s August-September contest on Oct. 1.

All subscribers to Carolina Sportsman are eligible for the contest, which is divided into four monthly contests (August-September, October, November and December) with prizes that include a $25 gift certificate to the online Sportsman’s Store and a free, one-year subscription to the Sportsman. Monthly winners will be announced monthly in the Sportsman and on www.CarolinaSportsman.com.

The grand-prize winner, announced in March, will receive a prize-package including a two-day deer/hog combination hunt for two people at Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge in Chesterfield County, S.C., a $50 gift certificate to the online Sportsman’s Store and a free, three-year subscription to Carolina Sportsman.

Harvey had located a nice rub line the day before, put out some corn and put up a stand. The next afternoon, a buck he recognized stepped out in the shooting lane, followed by a big 10-pointer, which he shot at 22 yards with a Mathews Halon bow and Rage Trypan broadheads. The buck, blood pouring from the wound, trotted away and went into the woods.

“He fell outside the lane, which is what kept me in the stand. If I’d seen him fall, I’d have gotten down,” Harvey said. “About six minutes later, I looked up and thought I saw a doe coming down the lane, but it was a small buck, and another big buck was behind him.

“He was sniffing every drop of blood from the other buck, and he walked up and stood almost in the same spot. I smoked him, and he fell 60 yards away. I about lost my mind.

“I had to get out of the tree then, because I was out of (buck) tags and afraid something else might walk up.”

About Dan Kibler 887 Articles
Dan Kibler is the former managing editor of Carolina Sportsman Magazine. If every fish were a redfish and every big-game animal a wild turkey, he wouldn’t ever complain. His writing and photography skills have earned him numerous awards throughout his career.

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