Lots of practice, other factors aided these four hunters
Successful deer hunting resembles the story of a visitor to New York City who asked a cabbie, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
Without turning his head, the driver dead-panned: “Practice.”
It’s a joke with a grain of truth that applies to hunting — becoming proficient requires hours of dedicated practice.
For archery hunting, that mostly means getting in position to down a doe or a wise old buck.
In reality, it’s a little more complicated than that. The first requirement is another truism from the three immutable laws of real-estate success — location, location, location.
About 30 years ago, David Morris, deer hunter and outdoors magazine publisher, said to a Dixie Deer Classic audience in Raleigh that he wouldn’t hunt in North Carolina because the state’s whitetail herd, in his estimation, didn’t carry enough quality headgear.
At the time, he probably was right. But the problem never was genetics. It was tradition and expectations cemented in hunting laws that allowed Tar Heel hunters to shoot brigades of young bucks each season.
Even with that pressure, deer remain the state’s most sought-after big-game animals.
North Carolina wasn’t like Kentucky (half the size of the Tar Heel State) where a one-buck rule since 1989 produced, on average, about two dozen Booners per season, including 37 in 2021. But once word of the Bluegrass State’s success got out, pretty soon North Carolina hunters weren’t satisfied with just one or two “book” bucks per year arriving at the Classic.
Change has been good
Bowhunters in particular needed closer shots and encouraged tighter scrutiny of state deer hunting not focused on snap shotgun shots at dog-pursued whitetails or 200+ yard attempts with rifles by still hunters. That eventually led to a sea change in regulations — and more discerning decisions by most hunters about which bucks to take.
North Carolina still doesn’t compare to Kentucky when it comes to Booner bucks. But changes have happened anyway, creating a more balanced herd. Urbanization has made hunting with hounds a rarity. And hunters are more selective about squeezing their triggers, in part because of improved equipment.
The electronic age also has flooded the market as hunters study deer habits, and hunting techniques including tapes, videos and dozens of TV programs dedicated to up-close hunting.
With state hunting laws allowing use of baits, a gazillion varieties of artificial deer foods have flooded the market, not to mention new calls to entice whitetails within shooting range.
Still, three main tactics have been in use since Cherokees, Lumbees and Tuscaroras of prehistory used self-made bows, wooden arrows and stone arrowheads to drop whitetails while Daniel Boone later aimed “Old Tick Licker” at them.
Those baseline factors remain: wind direction, food sources and proficiency with a weapon.
With North Carolina’s 2022 archery season (including crossbows or sling bows) starting Sept. 10, we talked to hunters who used sticks and strings to bag bucks in 2020 and 2021 and brought their trophies to the 2022 March Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh.
Easy enough for a 1st grader
When I talked to Hillsborough’s Ransom Summers and his dad Kelly Summers, the boy’s mind was on his first attempt at youth football, not an eye-opening experience 2 years earlier when he was 7-years-old.
“He was a little worried about missing school that day (Sept. 15, 2020),” his dad said. “We decided we’d hunt in the morning and I’d take him to school late.”
But while they sat in the two-person ground blind, they saw moving deer and decided to remain until lunch for a chance at a monster buck they’d seen a season earlier. They went home to change clothes and take the first-grader to Pathways Elementary.
They ate a quick sandwich, then 20 minutes later they were back in the blind. That was a good decision, as the youth arrowed a 156 7/8 gross inch (150 2/8 net) giant that capped the Dixie Deer Classic’s 2022 Youth Crossbow title.
“We’d seen too many deer moving,” Kelly said. “We also had trail-cam photos of the big guy from that morning.”
That day, they sat until about 30 minutes of shooting light remained. And the buck, unaware of their presence because of a north wind, walked toward their feeder.
Resting a Horton Vision 175 crossbow on a Bog tripod, the boy centered its sight on the buck’s shoulder and drilled the deer at 17 yards with a Rage collapsible broadhead.
Ransom was accustomed to the pressure of a single shot because his father allowed him one practice shot a day.
“It was good to have the rest,” he said. “I saw the deer just after my dad did. After the shot, the deer ran about 40 yards and I saw him fall. I was excited.”
Mowing down a monster
Another crossbow hunter, Marc Jacobs of Elon College, had seen a sprangle-rack buck hanging out with other deer at a church’s field where members had rights to hunt. But he didn’t.
Later, Jacobs saw a man mowing a yard next to the church.
“I stopped and asked permission to bow hunt behind his house,” Jacobs said. “His son lives beside him, and the man said it’d be okay for me to enter the woods behind his yard.”
Jacobs returned and cut a trail to a small creek that had several tree rubs along its banks. He later set a ladder stand and trail camera and began to scatter corn near the creek.
Within days, he had images of a high-rack 4×4 mainframe with five abnormal points.
“My wife Brittany and I hadn’t seen anything like him,” Jacobs said.
A trail camera revealed the stud whitetail visited the site each morning and evening.
“We sat in a buddy stand but left each day by 2 p.m. because we didn’t want to put out too much scent,” Jacobs said.
Alarmingly, the buck disappeared before archery season began.
“We worried someone might have shot him or he got hit by a car,” Jacobs said. “But I told my wife I was going to kill the deer Sept. 19. I had a feeling.”
Shouldering a Ravin R29 crossbow fitted with a 400-grain Carbon Express bolt and tipped with a Swhacker broadhead, the hunter realized his prediction, drilling the buck at 6:23 p.m. His wife videoed the episode.
“I didn’t want any question about taking this deer,” he said.
The deer’s rack totaled 161 6/8 gross inches and 148 3/8 net to capture the Adult Male Crossbow award for the Dixie Deer Classic.
A trophy for the masses
Savvy bow hunters understand whitetails have infiltrated suburban habitats across the south.
Even Mecklenburg County, surrounding Charlotte, N.C.’s massive metropolitan area, has its share of Boone & Crockett bucks. Two of the last top-three non-typical crossbow bucks, both Booners, came from the county that’s home to 1.2 million humans.
In September 2020, Dennis Leonard added a compound bow 4×4 mainframe trophy that taped 177 3/8 gross inches and 155 3/8 net. He captured the Adult Male Bow Typical division at the 2022 Dixie Deer Classic. The buck weighed 205 pounds.
The wind was a key factor for Leonard, plus he was hunting a whitetail many coveted.
“I shot him the second day of the season. But I hunted the first day after he’d been hanging out with two bachelor bucks,” Leonard said. “When he didn’t show up, my heart sank. I stayed in a Summit Climber the whole opening day. I knew he was in there, and I wanted first crack at him.”
Leonard’s trail camera began taking photos during July 2020, but not of this deer.
“I never got a picture of the buck until the night before I shot him. And I had 10 cameras set up around the property,” he said.
After his Mathews Monster M7 compound bow flung a Carbon Express arrow from 10 feet away, putting a Rage X-Treme broadhead through the deer, Leonard pulled SIM cards and saw the buck had shed 99 percent of its velvet the previous night. Only dried tatters remained on the rack.
The hunter credited scent-awareness and stealth with setting up the deadly shot from 10 yards that put down the buck after a few leaps.
“I’m wind and scent wary,” Leonard said. “I don’t put out scent. The only thing I do is wash my hunting clothes in Earth Scent soap. I also don’t wear my hunting boots anywhere except in the woods. I do wear a facemark and gloves.”
The 42-year lease trophy
Luke Bayse of Thomasville thanked his dad and a fortunate stop at a Chatham County country store 42 years ago for finding a golden hunting spot 66 miles east of their homes.
Bayse’s dad “heard Chatham County had some big bucks. So he drove over there and stopped at a store,” Bayse said. “He asked a guy if he knew anyone who had some land to lease for deer hunting. And he did.”
So began a long-term lease near Northwood High School that culminated in 2019 when the younger Bayse arrowed a 5×5 typical with a nearly perfect antler rack that scored 140 gross inches and netted 132 1/8.
“I put my Cadillac tree stand 25 feet up in some hardwoods next to a cutover where deer bedded,” he said.
He scattered minerals that June and July to get the local deer herd accustomed to visiting the area. Then he “amped up” his feeding routine as September’s opening day approached.
“We got lots of pictures of him in velvet and thought he’d be a good target buck,” Bayse said.
His trail cameras began snapping photos of the buck during late March.
“We had some corn out because it was too early for acorns to start dropping,” he said. “For 3 years and leading up to opening day, I had thousands of pictures of the buck. Then he disappeared for 10 days. We thought someone had shot him or he got run over.”
But Bayse continued to climb into his stand in a bottom adjacent to a clear-cut bedding area.
A week after opening day, he got into his stand at 5:30 a.m. and climbed 25 feet above the forest floor. He used a rope to pull up a Mathews Triax bow fitted with Carbon Express arrows and Rage Hypodermic mechanical broadheads.
“I first saw the buck at 85 to 90 yards, standing at the edge of a roadbed,” he said. “I had a bunch of deer around me, does and 2- and 3-year-old bucks. One of the nicer, younger bucks saw me draw back, stomped, and the bigger deer walked toward me.”
Bayse held his draw until the buck presented a clear shot. Then he released an arrow that sliced through the 10-pointer. The 170-pound deer immediately bolted but covered just 75 yards before it crashed.
“Oddly enough I had a bad wind blowing. But I was so high up they didn’t smell me,” he said. “There are houses around this place. So I think deer are used to the smell of humans. I’ve seen deer feeding in yards and bucks bedding down in yards.”
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