Pee Dee Wildlife Refuge gives up massive buck

Pee Dee Wildlife Refuge buck
Jared Troublefield poses with the big buck he killed on the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge on Nov. 14, 2019.

Buck’s rack has impressive mass throughout its length

Jared Troublefield of Stanfield, N.C. killed a buck that had a massive rack in Anson County, N.C on the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge. The thickness of the antlers contributed to its impressive net green score of 175 5/8 inches. It’s a mainframe 10 with a couple of stickers, and Troublefield had no trail camera photos or any history at all with the buck.

He killed the buck on Nov. 14 in the early afternoon.

“It was really a slow day. I got in the stand around 5:30 a.m., a little bit before dark. I shot the deer at 1:40 p.m, and it was only the second deer I’d seen all day. They were calling for rain that day, so I’d decided to sit until the rain started. And at 1:40, he came slipping down the creek bottom, and I shot him at about 70 yards,” said Troublefield.

He shot the buck with a 6.5 Creedmoor. The gentleman that green scored the buck was shocked at the mass of the deer’s antlers.

“He called me and said the deer had more than six inches (circumference) of mass between his G3s and G4s. I knew it was a good deer when I shot him, but it was much bigger when I got to see it up close,” he said.

Troublefield entered the buck in the hunting section of the CarolinaSportsman.com forum, and titled his post “God’s Gift.” And he feels that is exactly what this deer was for him.

Hunter’s pastor gave him some good advice

“The reason I go on this trip each year is because my uncle and his friend go, and they’re older. So I go to help them. In there, you have to do everything by hand, and it’s tough to do alone,” he said.

This year, the hunting dates fell when Troublefield’s church was having some special activities and services, and he felt bad about missing any of them.

Click the arrow below to hear our podcast on Troublefield’s hunt.

“The Lord gave me a gift. I told my pastor the week before that I didn’t want my uncle down there by himself and get hurt and nobody be there with him. But I need to be at church for this. And he told me if you do what the Lord tells you to do, He’ll bless you. So as soon as I walked up on that deer, those words came to my mind. I knew that’s exactly where it came from,” he said.

Troublefield shot the buck from a Millennium Hang-On stand that he put up the Sunday afternoon before the hunt. He put up the stand in about 20 minutes, and that’s the extent of time he spent on the property this year until the morning of his hunt.

Sutton’s Taxidermy is creating a mount for Troublefield to help him commemorate the hunt. They will also pull the deer’s jawbone to get an age estimate on the animal.

About Brian Cope 2726 Articles
Brian Cope is the editor of Carolina Sportsman. He has won numerous awards for his writing, photography, and videography. He is a retired Air Force combat communications technician, and has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of South Carolina. You can reach him at brianc@sportsmannetwork.com.

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