11-pointer has been green-scored at 140 inches
Anderson Long made a giant step toward becoming a seasoned deer hunter Sept. 15, Youth Hunting Day in North Carolina.
He’d learned lessons taught by his father, Harold Long, before he went into the woods and returned that Saturday with a report of an 11-point buck whose antler rack eventually green-scored 140 inches.
The 14-year-old 9th-grade student at Roxboro Community School had hunted the high-rack buck a season earlier and his trail-cameras had images of the Person County whitetail at a food plot.
“He had a tall rack back then. But I was looking to the future,” the youngster said.
After Long shot the deer and examined its headgear, he discovered from the top of its skull to the tip of its highest tine measured a stunning 21 inches.
“I started keeping an eye on him after I first saw him (2020),” Long said. “He was very active, moving from place to place. But I was disappointed during the rut (because the buck didn’t come near the youth’s stand). But (the trail cam) got another picture of him late in the season when he was an eight-pointer.“
In 2021 when the buck appeared during Youth Day, Long was glad he hadn’t taken an earlier shot at the deer.
“He’d grown into an 11-pointer with a split brow tine,” he said. “He was chasing a doe and grunting. I shot him walking, which I regret, because I hit him a little high above the center of his shoulder.”
Long shot the 11-pointer with a .243
During N.C.’s Youth Hunting Day, youngsters less than 18 years old may use any legal weapon to take white-tail deer. The prep soccer player held a .243 rifle with a Weaver scope and was seated in an old stand near the edge of a bean field when the buck appeared.
“To my knowledge, no one had shot a deer from that stand,” Long said. “I was the first person to hunt that farm.”
Because of the lack of hunting pressure, deer walked into the open to eat soybeans.
“At first, the field had a couple of six-pointers, a small eight, a couple of does and then a nice eight-pointer stepped out,” Long said.
Finally those deer bobbed their heads and looked toward the woods when the 11-pointer stepped into view.
Long spotted the buck approximately 100 yards from his stand. Then it started to walk toward him.
“A tree was in front of me and I had to look through limbs (to see the buck),” he said. “I shot, when he was 75 or 80 yards away. I was looking through the opening (in the tree’s leaves). But at the wrong deer. I saw the eight-pointer run off.”
The buck’s main beams measured 22 inches in length
After calling his father, the two searched the field. The son climbed into the stand and pointed to the spot where the 11-pointer had mule-kicked after the 7 p.m. shot.
“But we couldn’t find any blood there,” he said.
The two hunters began to circle that location, searching for a spot of blood. But by then darkness had fallen like a curtain.
“All I had was a phone light,” Long said. “I hoped I didn’t overlook (the deer) when I saw a little shadow on the ground, walked over and it was the buck.”
His father was proud “because it was the first buck I’d taken by myself and my first big buck,” he said.
The antlers’ base measurements both totaled 6 inches and the main beams taped 22 inches in length with 7-inch G2s and 6-inch G3s. A 2-inch abnormal point extended from the left brow-tine base of the 165-pound animal.
Bag-A-Buck
Congratulations to Long, 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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