Dustin Reamey of Chase City, Va., used a muzzleloader rifle to down one of Virginia’s greatest whitetailed bucks in November 2011 just across the North Carolina state line in Mecklenburg County.
Mecklenburg contains the entire Virginia portion of John H. Kerr Reservoir, also known as Buggs Island Lake and borders many of the counties considerded parts of North Carolina’s “trophy belt.”
Reamey was a 22-year-old forester who had been hunting another large whitetail with close friend Tommy Nemeth, but Nemeth killed that 16-pointer Nov. 10.
“I was happy for (Nemeth), but I thought my season was shot,” Reamey said. “He’d killed the 16-pointer a half- mile from where I was hunting.”
Reamey didn’t know that, a day later, he’d be standing over a 29-point buck with a rack that scored 212 7/8 net Boone and Crockett inches, putting the deer in the top five all-time among Virginia non-typicals.
The previous year, on Nov. 11, 2010, he had dropped a big 8-pointer, his first buck with a new .50-caliber Thompson Center Impact .muzzleloader. He killed his record-book buck from the same platform stand where he’d killed the 8-pointer one year earlier.
“It was Nov. 11, 2011 — I thought about this later — I’d killed that nice 8-pointer the previous year on Nov. 11, 2010,” Reamey said. “I really did have a feeling when I was driving from work to the farm something good was going to happen. I was basing that feeling on what I’d seen happen in the past at the farm during the rut and shooting that nice 8-pointer last year the same day. I had a gut feeling.”
The buck appeared at 5:20 p.m. in a farm road behind his stand, which faced a one-acre grain field.
A chest shot at 44 yards from Reamey’s smokepole put the big deer down.
“I’d put the stand up five years earlier, but I hadn’t hunted it in 2011,” he said. “I’m sure glad I went to the stand Nov. 11, 2011. You can bet I’ll be back there on Nov. 11, 2012.”
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