His first crossbow buck came after three years of hunting
Scottie Wolfe of Low Gap, a fireman at Mount Airy Fire Department, worked a 24-hour shift on Thursday, Oct. 7.
When he got off, Wolfe, who is known as registered user “Fireman 310” on NorthCarolinaSportsman.com’s hunting forum, killed his first-ever crossbow buck the next day, putting a broadhead through the engine room of a Surry County 11-pointer.
Hunting on a 195-acre lease, Wolfe uses a Parker 175 crossbow and credits his father with getting him interested in the primitive weapon about three years ago.
“My father had trouble handling a regular bow and switched over to a crossbow,” Wolfe said. “So I put down my Browning Backdraft bow and switched to the Parker crosbow, and I got to tell you it has been much harder to master the crossbow than a regular bow,”
Wolfe passed up small bucks during muzzleloader and gun season, hoping for a better buck because he had photos of some nice ones on his trail camera. To view one of his trail-cam photos on the forum, click here.
Ironically, he never had a photo of the big 11-pointer.
“I climbed into my 15-foot ladder stand about 4 p.m. that day,” Wolfe said. “Almost immediately, a doe ran out of the woods across the fallow field I was looking at, and she was chased by a 4-point buck. They ran into the woods where the rolling terrain goes towards a creek, and when they reappeared, a nice 8-pointer was with them. They had all my attention, and when I looked back to the other way, the 11-pointer was standing in the clear, looking in the direction of those three deer.
“I ranged the buck at 40 yards and raised the crossbow until my scope’s red dot was on him, and then I pulled the trigger,” Wolfe said. “I thought I missed the deer because he just casually walked away. But then at 65 yards, he began to get wobbly, before falling over dead while I watched through the binoculars.”
Wolfe’s action-packed hunt was over by about 4:45. His buck weighed 165 pounds and is a main-frame 10-point with a kicker on the right side G-2 tine. The rack carries a 20 3/4-inch spread, and the longest tine is the 10-inch G3 on the right side.
The kill was Wolfe’s first in three years shooting a crossbow. During that time, he missed at least five deer.
“I’ve always read the Sportsman when I picked it up at the store, but I never thought about going on-line until about a month ago,” Wolfe said. “Now I like to get on the forum and talk, and since I get some information out of it, I try and share a little myself.” To leave a comment for “Fireman 310” on the deer-hunting forum click here.
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