Dylan Jones finally killed the trophy 10-point buck
Timberlake, N.C.’s Dylan Jones killed a 147-inch, 10-point buck in Person County on Nov. 22 after a 2-year wait. He shot the deer during an afternoon hunt after one of his trail cameras buzzed his cell phone, alerting him to the buck’s daylight visit.
Jones received that photo around noon. By 1 p.m., he was settled in his stand.
“I couldn’t believe it, because this deer hardly ever day-lighted like that,” said Jones. “I figured I’d better get in the woods. So I got to my stand as fast as I could, got settled in around 1, and at 4:40, here he comes.”
A few moments later, his long wait was over, and the 147-inch, 10-point buck was on the ground in front of him.
“I still couldn’t believe it until I got my hands on him,” Jones said. “I don’t think I’ve ever hollered that loud.”
Who could blame him? The great buck, estimated at 4 1/2-years-old, carried a tall, tight, heavy rack with tines measuring 10 5/8, 10 3/8, 9 and 8 inches, main beams longer than 23 inches and a 14 5/8-inch inside spread.
And it proved that good things come to those who wait — even if they don’t really want to wait.
“I had him on camera in 2019 as a 2 1/2-year-old; I really tried him hard in 2020 but I just couldn’t make it happen,” Jones said. “He would always come in 10 or 15 minutes after the sun went down or leave right before the sun came up.”
He shot the 10-point buck with a Mossberg Patriot .300 Win Mag
Jones said the buck wasn’t much bigger this season than last, and he’d shed a tiny sticker point on his left main beam. “He might have lost a little mass between last year and this year,” he said.
But it wasn’t enough to keep him from putting a mental target on the buck, which showed up in August on Jones’s trail cameras but never made a daylight appearance. The week before blackpowder season, this past October, he disappeared until showing back up on Nov. 16 for a brief appearance.
“I was eating lunch on Nov. 22 and my phone went off. It was pictures from my Tactacam Reveal X-Cam camera. And there he was at 8:30 in the morning, in broad daylight,” he said.
Jones climbed his Muddy ladder stand as soon as he could get there and set out to watch.
“I had a corn pile out on top of a ridge next to a thicket where I was pretty sure he was bedding,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it when he showed up. I just looked up and saw him coming, right along the edge of the thicket.
“I thought, ‘Ain’t no way that’s him,’ but I got him in my scope and it was. The wind wasn’t perfect. But I thought I could get away with it. He came in and stopped with his nose in the air two or three times. I got scared with him getting so close to me. He was coming straight at me. And I finally decided I had to shoot him.”
Jones lined up the buck in his Nikon scope, put the crosshairs between the buck’s front shoulders and touched off the trigger of his Mossberg Patriot in .300 Win Mag. The buck dropped on the spot.
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