Buck estimated to score in the 140s Boone & Crockett is second trophy in two seasons for Koury.
Teena Koury of Burlington is building a reputation as one of the top outdoors women in North Carolina, especially when it comes to bagging large white-tailed deer.
On Jan. 1, 2011, the final day of the 2010-11 deer season, she nailed a Person County buck with a rack that scored 142 4/8 inches that was the largest buck taken by an adult female Tar Heel hunter during that season, finishing second at the 2011 Dixie Deer Classic to a 146 2/8-inch buck killed by a 7-year-old Alamance County girl.
Koury may have topped that feat when she took a giant 8-pointer with a 22-inch frame just before dark on Nov. 19.
Koury, co-owner of Carolina Koury Hosiery Company in Burlington, was using a .50-caliber muzzle-loader, even though it was one week into rifle season in the central zone.
“I noticed when it came out, (that) it was a larger-bodied deer,” Koury said. “I picked up my binoculars and my gun.”
The buck was 120 yards from her after walking into the middle of the field on the edge of which her ladder stand was secured to a tree.
“I waited for him to stop and turn broadside,” she said. “I pulled back the hammer, then the trigger and it went ‘click.’
“I went ‘Oh no, not today.’ ”
She said the buck must have heard her comment because it and looked toward her before it turned and started to leave the field, chasing a small doe into the woods.
“Before he hit the woods line, I pulled back (the hammer) again, took a quick aim and squeezed the trigger,” Koury said. “Luckily the gun went off.”
After the smoke dissipated, she saw the small doe running in the opposite direction.
“I saw this buck flat where I shot him,” Koury said. “He never moved.”
She remained in her stand the few minutes until dark, and then walked half a mile to her truck, drove to a log cabin that’s her hunting headquarters, and waited for hunting buddy and neighbor Danny McPherson to arrive from his hunt.
“You hear about ground shrinkage, but when we returned for Danny to load up the buck, there was no ground shrinkage,” Koury said of the 177-pound buck. “He was everything I hoped he would be.”
Taxidermist Randy Dunkley of Hurdle Mills estimated the buck would gross between 140 and 145 inches Boone & Crockett.
See other bucks killed this season – and add photos of your own – in the North Carolina Bag-a-Buck Contest!
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