Casey Warren killed the 159-inch whopper on Oct. 30
Casey Warren of Alamance County smoked a 159-inch, main-frame 8-pointer on Oct. 30, the first day of the 2021 muzzleloader season in North Carolina’s Central Deer Zone, after being first tipped off by his Stealth Cam cellular camera.
Cellular trail cameras are becoming critical gear for today’s deer hunters. And it couldn’t be any more true for Warren. A new ping to his cell phone app on Oct. 26 practically changed his life for a few days.
Warren said he hadn’t seen a buck of this caliber on his cameras before. It was a real monster buck that he hoped to get a chance at.
“I hadn’t seen anything like this monster before,” he said.
The buck was coming to one of his stands with a feeder that was filled with persimmon-flavored corn. At first, the buck was only visiting at night. But apparently he didn’t get along well with the local herd.
“I have multiple pictures of him fighting the other bucks,” Warren said. “He apparently chased off the other bucks so he could have all seven does that were using the area to himself.”
The buck set up shop and started coming to the persimmon-flavored corn on a regular basis at night. Warren knew his chances of taking this huge buck were increasing. But it was still bow season, and he didn’t have a bow stand set up. He hoped the deer would stay around in time for him to get a chance at him when muzzleloader season opened.
It wasn’t easy. The deer was about to drive Warren insane.
159-inch whopper begins daytime visits
“I started losing sleep over this monster. I hadn’t seen anything like this deer before,” said Warren, who not only hoped the deer would hang around until muzzleloader season, but start visiting during daylight hours. He had high hopes the deer would become comfortable with the feeder site and start arriving before dark.
The next day, the deer came out at 6:30 in the afternoon and stayed for over an hour. Warren was relieved and he felt an instant sense of achievement.
“I knew I had him at that point. He wasn’t going to be a nocturnal deer. But I was still losing sleep.” he said.
The deer was a regular until cold, rainy weather rolled through. He vanished for two days, two very long days. Warren was sick because he thought he wouldn’t see the deer again.
“I just knew the deer had moved on,” he said.
Patience pays off for Warren
Muzzleloader season arrived on Oct. 30, and Warren was in his stand early still with high hopes of seeing the buck show up.
“I got in the stand at 2 p.m. and hoped and prayed the deer would at least come out so I could see him,” he said.
At 5:20, Warren was scanning fields, searching for deer — and there he was.
Warren grabbed his muzzleloader and brought it to his shoulder, but the buck walked back in the woods. Ready, Warren waited patiently for the deer to come back out. Just as he hoped, the deer stepped back out of the woods.
“Needless to say, he never made it to the corn. I shot, and he ran off,” Warren said.
Warren got down from his stand and found blood. After about a 30-minute wait, he started following the blood trail and found the buck piled up 80 yards away.
“I was so excited when I found him. I had never seen any deer like that before. I tagged him, took some photos, and started dragging him out,” he said.
Warren’s buck was a main-frame 8-pointer with three kickers that had a total gross score of 159 inches.
Bag-A-Buck
Congratulations to Warren, 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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