Opening day of muzzleloader season is big success in Rockingham County
After three years as acquaintances, Alec Robertson of Reidsville, N.C., finally got to meet an old friend.
Robertson, an 18-year-old student at Rockingham Community College, had three years worth of trail-camera photos of a glorious white buck on some family property in his home county. He saw him for the first time this past Saturday around 6:15 and killed the big buck moments later on opening day of blackpowder season in Rockingham County.
The buck, an albino, carried a main-frame 9-point rack with two sticker points on the base of its left antler, and was 17 inches wide, in addition to weighing 212 pounds on the hoof. Maybe not the biggest trophy killed this season — especially in Rockingham County, the “buckle” of North Carolina’s “trophy belt,” but maybe a trophy that won’t be duplicated.
Hunting with his girlfriend, Meredith Smith of Reidsville, Robertson had seen a doe and a cowhorn buck between the time he climbed into a two-man ladder stand overlooking a deer trail on a hillside and 6:30. Both came in behind the stand, downwind, and both snorted loudly, obviously picking up the scent of the hunters.
“I didn’t figure we were going to see anything else, but about 15 minutes later, my girlfriend, she said she saw a deer coming down the hill, and it was him,” Robertson said. “He was in front of us, and they had been behind us. He came right in, to about 25 yards, and he stuck his nose up in the air to smell, and that’s when I shot him.”
Robertson squeezed the trigger on his .50-caliber Knight muzzleloader, and the slug took the buck cleanly through the boiler room. It went only 15 yards before piling up.
“This was the first time I’ve ever hunted with a muzzleloader, and this is the biggest buck I’ve ever killed,” said Robertson, who played on one of Reidsville High School’s recent state-championship football teams. “He’s solid white; that’s pretty special.
“I have pictures of him for three years. The first year, he was a 6-pointer; the next year, he was a small 8,” he said. “This year, he got bigger and taller. The tips of some of his antlers are broken off, from fighting, I guess. The was the first time I ever saw him in daylight. He just showed up. I would have shot him before (this season) if I’d seen him.”
The right beam of Robertson’s buck is half of a standard 8-point rack, but the left beam is a little different. A 3-inch kicker protrudes from the front of the base, and a 2-inch kicker protrudes from the rear of the base. A “crabclaw” at the end of the beam gives that antler eight points.
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