December Bag-A-Buck Contest Winner

Macon County man makes WNC pround

Tim Jennings of Franklin didn’t have a lot to shoot at when he put his scope on a big buck the afternoon of Dec. 8.

He was in a tree stand on a tract of land in Macon County, a stand he’d hunted for years in an area he knew held a lot of deer. At about 12:45 p.m., he saw a doe slip past him at about 30 yards, and behind her, a buck stopped.

But Jennings didn’t have an easy shot.

“The doe came out, but the buck stopped behind a laurel thicket,” Jennings said. “The doe had seen me, and she went on, but the buck stopped and looked. I could just see the tips of his antlers, and I could see his neck, so I shot him in the neck.

“I didn’t know what I had until I got to him.”

What he had was a big main-frame 10-pointer with four sticker points. The buck, which weighed 172 pounds field-dress, carried an 18-inch spread.

Several days later, Jennings entered his buck in North Carolina Sportsman’s Bag-A-Buck contest presented by Rivers West, and his entry was drawn as the winner of the fourth and final monthly contest.

Prizes for the monthly contest include a $25 gift certificate from Overton’s, a Jac-Shirt from Rivers West, a North Carolina Sportsman t-shirt and window decal, a copy of Cooking on the Wild Side by Ty Conti, the magazine’s publisher, a Plano storage box, a Tink’s scent kit, a Line-X truck bed liner, Realtree caps and Monster Buck DVDs and a Rossi youth model .22/.410.

Jennings remains eligible for the grand prize, a 2-day deer hunt with Fourth Generation Outfitters, a Weatherby Rifle and Leopold scope, a $25 gift certificate from Overton’s, a fiberglass deer blind from Four Sons Marine, a Line-X truck bed liner and a full set of hunting clothes from Rivers West. The winner will be drawn in time for the prizes to be presented at the Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh in early March.

A single shot from Jennings’ 7mm-Magnum hit the deer squarely in the neck and dropped it on the spot – still out of Jennings’ field of view. When he climbed down and walked around the laurel thicket, he found a huge buck anchored to the ground.

“He’s one of the biggest bucks taken in Macon County,” said Jenkins, who got in the stand early in the morning and was planning an all-day stay.

The buck had sticker points on the two longest tines on both antlers, heavy bases and a long, crooked brow tine on its right antler.