The 10-point typical buck green-scored 162 1/8 inches
Claire Coble of Mt. Gilead, N.C. killed a nearly-perfect 5×5 typical buck that’s been green-scored at 162 1/8 inches. She was hunting in Richmond County on Sept. 25 with her dad, who missed the same buck 8 days earlier.
As excruciating as that first experience with the giant buck was for Derrick Coble, watching his daughter kill it on the second one was unforgettable.
The teen hunter dropped the bruiser buck with the same .243 rifle she’s used previously. But this was her first buck.
“I got a doe last year and one the year before, but that’s all,” the 13-year-old said.
They were hunting a 3700-acre tract of private property near the Pee Dee River, a recreational area created by a local lumber company for its employees and friends. The company has performed a feeding program consisting of corn and mineral pellets for the past few years.
The elder Coble believed the field in front of their blind, planted in sawtooth oaks, would be a good place to take his daughter. But neither expected the large buck to appear.
“We got in the stand a little before 7 p.m.,” his daughter said.
Moments later, the giant buck showed up
But 5 minutes after they settled in their blind 65 yards from the feeder, the giant buck popped into view.
“We hunted the same place that morning but only saw a bunch of does and one small buck,” the girl said. “Then at 7 p.m., there he was, standing right underneath the feeder.”
She admitted to being “a little nervous, but I wasn’t shaking.”
Her dad said “there was a lot of heavy breathing.”
But as he’d taught her, she looked through her rifle scope, steadied the crosshairs on the deer’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger.
“When she pushed the safety off, he turned his head a little and looked toward us,” her dad said. “I think that caused her to hit a little behind (her aim point).”
But when they found the deer, the rifle’s 95-grain Federal Fusion bullet had done its job. However, before then, a roller coaster of emotions washed through the teenage girl.
“He ran off after the shot,” she said. “I was watching him and got worried. But he went into a little patch of trees and fell, and I was better.”
The deer had a 20 3/8-inch inside spread
Seconds later her anxiety resurfaced when the buck stood up and bounded out of sight.
“I’d lost him in my binoculars from my corner of the blind. But I heard him crash,” her father said. “I told Claire I hoped what she saw was another buck that had run when she shot.”
But it was her buck, which they found 40 yards from where she saw it drop initially.
The deer rack’s impressive measurements included a right main beam of 23 2/8 inches and a left main beam of 23 4/8, brow tines of 6 and 5 4/8 inches, G2s of 9 4/8 and 10 4/8 inches, G3s of 9 3/8 and 8 6/8 inches, and G4s of 5 4/8 and 2 4/8 inches. Its mass also is outstanding with circumference totals of 5 3/8 and 5 4/8, 4 4/8 and 4 4/8, 4 4/8 and 4 6/8, and 4 2/8 and 4 inches for only 5 6/8 deduction inches. The inside spread taped 20 3/8 inches.
“Claire certainly made her brothers and sisters jealous,” her father said. “And I’d took a lot of ragging after I missed this buck a week earlier. But it sure made my day when she got him.”
It also forged a precious memory for a father and daughter.
Bag-A-Buck
Congratulations to Coble, who is now entered in our Bag-A-Buck contest. Click here to enter your buck in the Carolina Sportsman Bag-A-Buck contest. We’re giving away some great monthly prizes, as well as a Grand Prize that includes a Millennium M25 hang-on deer stand and a 2-man, 2-day hunt for deer and hogs at Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge in Chesterfield, S.C.
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