Craig Hester’s 10-point buck was the cats’ meow
Craig Hester killed a trophy 10-point buck in Person County on Nov. 14 that’s been green-scored at 157 inches. If you can imagine a deer hunting story told by Larry the Cable Guy, you have an idea of how Hester told the tale of this hunting adventure.
“It sounds crazy, but it happened,” Hester said
The previous Wednesday, Hester and his hunting buddy Bug Long planned to build a wooden deer stand at the edge of a soybean field at Hester’s farm. He’d seen multiple scrapes and huge tree rubs at this site.
With his Can-Am Defender UTV loaded with the building materials, they headed past a rental house to where they would put up the stand. But Hester was worried.
“I said, ‘Please, Lord, don’t let that buck be in the field.’”
Of course, the 10-point trophy buck stood 40 yards away with a doe. The two deer trotted away. Three days later, Hester discovered why the whitetails weren’t especially alarmed.
After the men built the stand, Hester returned and hunted for three days. But when he arrived Saturday at 2 p.m, six does were in the bean field. So he couldn’t ride or walk to the new stand without spooking them.
With necessity the mother of invention, Hester parked his Defender 15 feet from the rental house’s corner after he backed the UTV into a bush growing beside a wrecked 1990s model Chrysler 300.
Football, cats, and other chaos didn’t hinder the hunt
“All this noise was blasting out the open windows of the house,” Hester said. “The renter had invited a bunch of friends to watch a (UNC vs. Wake Forest) football game and drink beer. They were yelling and cheering.
“But the does didn’t pay any attention. I guess they were used to noise. I hadn’t hunted this farm, so it was a safety zone, a relaxed place for deer.”
With the UTV’s windshield down, Hester had a view of the field for his 7mm Remington Magnum bolt-action rifle mated to a 4-12×50 Swarovski scope.
“But the renter loves cats,” Hester said. “Twenty-five lived in the Chrysler. And when I got parked, they jumped in the UTV, crawled over it and me, and walked on the roof and hood. I’d reach out and smack ‘em off the hook do I could see the field.”
Next, to his horror, Hester watched a black lab relieve its bowels in the field. Again, the does didn’t bolt.
Hester shot the 10-point buck from 55 yards away
A few minutes later, an iron pan fell into a collection of pots and pans inside the already-raucous house.
“It sounded like a cherry bomb went off,” Hester said. “I guess the deer in the field were used to the chaos. They didn’t run.”
But a hot doe trotted into the field followed by the buck Hester hoped to see.
“Right then, a guy started out the door, and I told him not to come out,” he said. “I said ‘act like I’m invisible.’”
With the buck 55 yards away, Hester shot the animal, which fell stone dead.
“I jumped out the Defender and yelled “hell yeah! I got him!” he said. “That’s when the TV went mute. When they knew I’d shot (the buck), they started watching the football game and yelling again.”
The deer weighed 180 pounds and had thick beams and longest tines of 12 and 13 inches.
“Who knew blending in with chaos would work to kill a big buck?” Hester said.
He didn’t care at all that the Tar Heels won the game 59-53 in overtime.
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Bag-A-Buck
Congratulations to Hester, who is now entered in our Bag-A-Buck contest. This makes him eligible for a number of great prizes. That includes the grand prize, a two-day, two-man hunt at Cherokee Run Hunting Lodge. Click here to view the Bag-A-Buck gallery or to enter the contest yourself.
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