Surry County hunter ends season with a bang

Bruiser 16-pointer scores 166+ non-typical

The 2010 deer season didn’t go to well for Michael Goins, but 2011 sure opened with a bang.

A 16-point, 166-inch bang.A Surry County resident, Goins was ill for almost the entire month of December when an ear infection turned into a burst eardrum and into bacterial meningitis.

“I was in the hospital until Dec. 17,” Goins said.

On Jan. 1, the final day of the first-ever extended deer season in Northwest North Carolina, Goins got the itch to get out of his house for a while. A misting rain finally quit late in the afternoon, so he slung his rifle over his shoulder and basically went for a walk in the woods.

It was certainly a walk to remember.

He looped down a four-wheeler trail and took a shortcut across the back side of a green field, coming out in a 50-yard-wide set of hardwoods set beside a pine thicket, with everything sloping down toward a creek.

“I was cutting across, and I stepped on a pine limb and it snapped, and I heard limbs go to breaking in the pine thicket,” Goins said. “A little doe came out first; I didn’t even raise the rifle at her, but then I caught a glimpse of something behind her.

“I saw horns that were tall and massive; I had no clue how big he was, but I threw the gun up and took a crack at him running and missed.”

Goins had the presence of mind to jack another .270 shell into the chamber of his Ruger M77 bolt-action rifle, and when the buck got to the bank of the creek, he fired and missed a second time.

The third time was indeed the charm, but Goins had some help from the land. On the opposite side of the creek was a relatively steep bank rising up to a ridge, and as the buck got to within 15 yards of the top of the bank, he slowed. At the top of the bank, he stopped, facing directly away from Goins.

The doe bounded away to the left, and the buck turned, ready to head off behind her into another pine thicket. But that turn gave Goins a quartering-away shot.

“I dropped it back to where I thought his last rib was and shot,” he said. “The buck went on over the back side of the ridge, out of sight, but he didn’t go after the doe.”

Goins, who was still weak from his hospital stay, walked out of the woods to his house, planning to go back the next morning to find the deer. With snow on the ground from a big Christmas Day storm and cold temperatures, he figured he’d have an easier time the next morning.

“Then Sherry, my wife, reminded me that we were going to go eat breakfast with her mom and dad, so we went, then we came home, and I got on my boots and hunting coat and went back,” Goins said. “I got to the top of the ridge above the creek where he was when I shot, and I saw him laying in there; he didn’t go 25 yards. If I’d gone back the night before, I’d have found him.

“It tickled me to death when I got to him. I grabbed him, and I just had to sit down; I was shaking like a leaf.”

Goins had to have some help getting the deer out once he slid it back down the steep bank to the creek.

“I was still too weak to drag him by myself, so I called a buddy of mine, and he came, and we dragging him a little while,” he explained. “Then I gave my uncle time to get home from church and called him, and he came with his four-wheeler and got him out.”

Joey Thompson, a longtime friend of Goins’ and an official with the North Carolina Bowhunters Association, put a tape measure on the buck and came up with some astounding numbers.

The buck had a narrow (14-inch inside spread), extremely tall and heavy rack. A main-frame 10-pointer, the buck had sticker points off both G-2s, a big sticker point between the third and fourth tines on the right antler, and a total of 22 1/8 inches of non-typical points: 12 2/8 on the right antler and 9-7/8 on the left side. The right antler sported tines that were 12 1/8 and 11 2/8 inches long, and the left antler’s longest tines were 11 5/8 and 10 3/8 inches long.

Thompson scored the buck at 174 1/8 gross non-typical and 166-5/8 net non-typical. To see a side-view photo of the buck on the deer hunting forum click here.