Mid-day hunt on full-moon produces trophy 8-pointer
With a big, full moon in the skies on Thanksgiving weekend, Paige Clayton of Mooresville and her fiance, Johnny Carpenter, decided that a mid-day hunt might be in order.
What a great decision.
In the woods by 11 a.m. on Nov. 28, Clayton had a big 8-point buck visit her corn pile on a 500-acre lease in Montgomery County around noon. She didn’t waste any time, putting a bullet from her .308 through the buck’s boiler room at 100 yards.
Two days later, she entered North Carolina Sportsman’s Bag-A-Buck contest, and she was drawn as the winner of the monthly contest for November. Clayton will receive a year’s subscription to the magazine and a $25 gift certificate to the Sportsman’s Outdoor Store on www.northcarolinasportsman.com. LIke anyone who enters the online contest, she remains eligible for the grand prize, a 10-year subscription to the magazine and a $50 gift certificate to the Sportsman’s Outdoor Store. The grand prize will be drawn in time for presentation at the Dixie Deer Classic in Raleigh in March 2016.
Carpenter introduced Clayton to deer hunting five years ago, but it wasn’t until this year that they had a decent piece of land to hunt. She’d never had a chance at a nice buck until Nov. 28.
“We had some other 8-pointers on our trail cameras, but not as nice as this deer,” she said. “The day I killed him, the other guys were leaving their stands when we were coming in. Not five minutes after my fiance was in his stand, this buck crossed his shooting lane. He texted me and told me one might be coming my way.
“I saw a deer — saw the tail flicking — but it disappeared. After about 20 minutes, he just all the sudden stepped out into my corn pile, and I shot him. He ran about 30 yards and went down.”
Click here to read about other big North Carolina bucks.
Post your big buck story to our Bag-A-Buck contest to be eligible for monthly prizes and our year-end grand prize.
