Daughter killed 147-inch buck earlier this season
Granville County is growing them big this year, with another 150-inch monster making a fatal mistake with only two weeks left of the 2015 season. Anthony Richard of Butner finally got the big 10-pointer he had been targeting for two months within rifle range.
Richard found this 10-pointer shortly after his 13-year-old daughter, Haylie, killed a 147-inch buck in October. But until Dec. 18, the buck had outsmarted him, making all the right moves under dark skies.
“He showed up the last week of muzzleloader on camera and has been nocturnal ever since,” Richard said, “except for a few weeks ago, (when) he stuck his head out one time on Black Friday, but I was at Bass Pro Shops spending money.”
Richard didn’t give up, hoping the buck would make a mistake at some point.
“The buck was using a big cutover all year, and I knew I could get him at some point if I stayed on him,” he said.
Richard’s stand was set up overlooking a large cutover that was the buck’s primary bedding area. Over the past two months, he had gotten hundreds of night-time photos of the buck, but he didn’t have any success capturing or seeing the buck during the daylight hours.
But the afternoon of Dec. 18, the buck finally made a grave error, allowing a yearling doe to lead him out of cover and into the hot zone a little less than 150 yards away from Richard’s stand.
“It was getting dark, and I was getting ready to leave the stand until I saw him step out into the cutover behind a little yearling,” Richard said.
With darkness only a few minutes away, Richard didn’t waste any time preparing for the shot and pulled the trigger on his AR 10. Fifty yards later, the big 10-pointer piled up while running straight towards Richard’s stand.
While his daughter’s October buck measured a whopping 147 inches, Richard’s buck scored a few inches higher, with a net green score of 153 inches and only 1 ½ inches of deduction. The deer’s rack was not a very wide, with only a 14-inch inside spread, and a brow tine is missing, but the remaining long tines added up quickly. The longest tines measured almost 12 inches.
“It was a good year for us. We took several really nice bucks on our property, but we have a good seed crop of bucks out there we hope to see grow up next season,” Richard said.
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