Buck had tall tine, symmetrical 138+ inch rack
For the last two years, Jason Carter of Snow Camp, North Carolina watched a tall racked 10-pointer grow to maturity on his hunting property in Alamance County after his summertime trail camera revealed the deer was still around and had blossomed into a real stud. Needless to say, the buck made the top of the hit list for the 2017 deer season.
On the second day of the season, Carter climbed into his tree stand with his camera man up above and stuck the deer shortly after 7 o’clock on Sunday afternoon under extremely windy conditions resulting from the approaching Hurricane Irma.
“It was very windy that afternoon and I was holding tight to the tree for most of the afternoon,” he said. “But I knew with the pressure dropping it would get them on their feet.”
Carter was hunting in the top of a mature oak tree overlooking a large Alamance County cutover. His tree stand was located near a couple of dozen oak trees at the top of the hill in addition to the hundreds of pounds of corn Carter was dropping out for the deer.
It was working though. Carter had a full collection of images he captured from his series of trail cameras overlooking the area and all of the trails entering the stand site. The deer was coming in on schedule just about every afternoon and from the same direction.
“I have four trail cameras set up covering all four directions like a plus symbol to figure out which way he would be coming and I knew which way to expect him. But on that afternoon, he surprised me and came from a different direction and was completely downwind of me,” he said.
Carter was worried the deer was going to smell him. But he sure wasn’t worried about the deer seeing him because his two boys, Landon and Easton had completely painted his face to eliminate the opportunity for the deer to see his face.
“Luckily, the deer didn’t smell me and walked right to the corn pile. He stopped at 18 yards right under my stand,” he said.
After a few minutes and making sure he was in the camera frame, Carter drew back and shot him right in the engine room. The buck took off and disappeared into the cutover. He felt as if he had made a good shot, but climbed down and went back to his home to get his oldest son, Landon to help him find the deer. And as soon as they got back to the woods, it didn’t take Landon long to locate the blood trail and walk right up to him.
“I got to watch him grow for two years and then finally get a shot at him on the third year on my first day in the stand,” he said.
Carter’s buck was a mainframe 10-pointer with a total gross score of 138 3/8 inches. And even though the buck was only 13 ¼ inches wide, he had a tall, symmetrical rack with extremely long tines: eleven-inch G2’s and eleven-inch G3’s.
