Halifax County historically has been one of the spots in North Carolina that produces not only lots of white-tailed deer but its fair share of trophy animals.
Most of the credit must go to a relatively small human population, big agricultural fields that offer excellent deer forage such as wheat, corn and soybeans and the presence of the Roanoke River drainage that slices the region from northwest to southeast, creating excellent hardwood bottom lands and swamps for big whitetails to find respite from hunters.
The cherries on top are the Roanoke River National Wildlife Refuge and Roanoke River Wetlands and Tillery Game Lands (all managed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s biologists when it comes to hunting and fishing rules). No game lands in North Carolina offer a better chance to take a trophy buck.
About two weeks ago (November 19), Brandon Mabrey of Roanoke Rapids proved the point – again.
“I was hunting out of a portable SuperMag tree stand on public land in Halifax County in the middle of the rut in the afternoon,” said the 27-year-old firearms instructor for the N.C. Department of Corrections. “About 20 minutes before dark, I spotted six does walking down the edge of a wood line.
“I was looking for a buck in the group because you can only shoot does during the first and last week of deer season on game land.”
Mabrey’s excitement at first waned because he didn’t spy any antlers. He actually put his rifle, a .243, across his lap and began to scan the area behind the six does to see if a buck was trailing them.
“I wanted to see if a buck was circling downwind from the does’ scent, checking them, since it was the middle of the rut.” he said.
As he turned around from looking behind his stand, he glanced toward the does and saw a flash of white horns about 10 feet inside the woods line. At the time, he had no idea what an impressive set of headgear this buck was carrying.
“I couldn’t tell because he wasn’t looking toward me,” Mabry said. “He was standing broadside in the wood line behind limbs and brush.”
After a short wait, the bruiser stepped in the open, and the hunter gasped at the sight of its wide rack and ivory tines.
Fighting the shakes, Mabrey finally got the crosshairs of the scope atop his Remington pump .243 to settle on the buck’s shoulder. He estimated he had a 275-yard distance to carry (he’d “flagged” the field earlier in 100-yard increments). Then he squeezed the trigger.
“I missed the buck, so I shucked another (100-grain bullet) into the chamber and held a little higher on his back,” he said.
This time the bullet struck the target, and the buck ran about 25 yards, then, like a mule deer, turned to look at the hunter “like I’d missed him again,” Mabrey said.
He immediately drew down again on the buck and squeezed off another round.
“I noticed he was limping as he ran off this second time,” Mabrey said. “He had a gimp in his step.”
The hunter had a suspicion he’d made a fatal shot but didn’t know for sure, so he jacked a third .243 round into the chamber and fired again, holding the crosshairs level with the top of the buck’s back at 300 yards.
“I was a wreck by this time because I’d had three chances to get a good look at his antlers, and I knew the .243 and Winchester 100-grain PowerPoint bullets didn’t have the knockdown power of a bigger caliber rifle,” Mabrey said.
With the deer out of sight at last, he waited an estimated 30 minutes, then climbed down out of his tree stand and walked to where he thought he’d last seen the huge buck. By then, with darkness drawing near, he was using a flashlight but wasn’t finding any signs of a hit.
Finally he spied a spot of blood on a leaf and felt encouraged. He was in the woods now, scanning for the deer and found it piled up against a blowdown tree, 50 yards from where he found the only drop of blood the buck had leaked.
“When I lifted the rack up off the ground, I can’t express how good the feeling was,” Mabrey said. “I felt like this is the buck I have been after since I started hunting as a kid.”
The deer’s antlers had a 23-inch inside spread and a 25 ½ inches wide outside spread. Its nearly perfect 5×5 frame has one 1-inch drop tine and will be scored officially as a 10-point typical rack at the 2012 Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh. Mabrey said the rack likely will score in the 160-inches range.
He admitted he was lucky because his scope was off by 18 inches (at 300 yards) and his first shot had hit the buck far back, but one of his bullets severed the buck’s spine and was fatal.
Luck apparently runs in his family as Brandon is a cousin of Brent Mabrey of Roanoke Rapids who in 2005 bagged the current N.C. record non-typical archery buck, a deer whose rack totaled 176 7/8 inches and also fell in Halifax County.
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