Robert Emanuel, youth pastor at Life Community Church in Jamestown, was getting ready Monday (Sept.13), for his church’s big-game dinner where the church feeds venison, duck, buffalo, bear, goose and alligator to almost 1,000 Guilford County sportsmen. But he didn’t bring the deer meat from a 19-point, 150-class non-typical in-velvet-rack buck he killed opening day of archery season in Rockingham County.
Emanuel, 43, and a native Texan, has been youth pastor at the church for the last 5 1/2 years and hunted in North Carolina during that time, but he hadn’t gotten a chance at a buck to rival the deer he arrowed Sept. 11.
“I was hunting a small, five-acre wood lot,” he said. “It was nearly dark when this buck walked out behind five other bucks — some in velvet and some not. But I waited until he got within bow range.”
Emanuel knew the buck was in the area because he put a trail camera on the tree holding his deer stand a week and a half earlier and had several photographs of the big non-typical.
“It was right at 7:25 p.m. when he walked in, and probably 7:30 when I shot him,” he said.
The buck first appeared behind the other five bucks at about 20 yards, but then ducked behind a tree. As Emanuel drew back, the big 19-pointer walked behind another tree.
“I was frozen because two of the bucks had seen me, and I had to let down my bow really slow,” he said.
Emanuel was holding a Hoyt Trykon compound bow set at 80-pounds draw weight. He was using Carbon Express arrows fitted with Rage three-bladed mechanical broadheads.
The two bucks that had spotted the hunter soon bounced away, but after a few minutes the other four bucks walked out at 30 yards with the huge buck in tow.
“He stopped at 30 yards, and I put the sight pin behind his left shoulder and released,” Emanuel said.
The buck crashed away after the shot, and then Emanuel got down from his stand. Afraid of spooking the deer, the hunter left his hunting area to retrieve a flashlight and returned about an hour later. He found the deer about 40 yards from where he’d hit it.
Emanuel’s taxidermist estimated the score in the 150-inch range although the rack is dripping with tassels of bloody velvet. It has an 18-inch inside spread.
“I’ll be taking it to the Dixie Deer Classic,” Emanuel said. “I don’t know what it’ll actually score, but it was my buck of a lifetime.”
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