Justin Mathis, the veteran North Carolina Wildlife Commission enforcement officer stationed in Caswell County, downed one of the highest-racked Tar Heel bucks taken this fall by an archer.
Hunting last Wednesday (Sept. 14), his day off from work, the 28-year-old Mathis was at the same farm he’d hunted the previous Sunday and Monday without success.
“Monday evening as I was passing by on a road near the farm I looked into a field,” he said. “It was nearly dark, and I saw the silhouettes of five or six big-bodied deer.
“One appeared to have a good rack, and a farmer who tends that land had told me he’d seen a good deer.”
After receiving permission to hunt the field, Mathis planned to return the next day and hang a stand in a big red oak near its edge. However, the field already had an old wooden two-man buddy stand attached to another tree near a small grassy patch next to the beans. Someone had camouflaged this stand with burlap sacks.
“But I’d forgot I had a commitment to be in Greensboro Tuesday, so I couldn’t hunt,” said Mathis, who goes by ‘gman335‘ on the NorthCarolinaSportsman.com reports forum.
He returned Wednesday afternoon after his work shift ended.
“When I went to the red oak and climbed up, I saw I didn’t have any good shooting lanes, so I got into the old buddy stand,” Mathis said.
By the time he pulled up his Bowtech Blackhawk 2004 compound bow, set at 70 pounds draw weight (he also had Trophy Ridge Blast carbon arrows tipped with Rage two-bladed broadheads and Sur-Lok bow sights), Mathis said it was 6 p.m.
“I heard a four-wheeler go up and down the (rural road near the field) a few times, then at 6:45 p.m. a couple of fawns came into the field, then a third fawn, then I saw a doe running around in a thicket next to the field,” Mathis said.
He figured a small buck was in the thicket, and the doe was trying to elude that deer.
“A short time later, some kids pulled up in a car and were saying, ‘C’mere deer. What are y’all doing?’” he said. “They had to be looking at the deer in the bean field.”
The commotion caused the fawns and doe to bounce away, and Mathis figured his hunt had been ruined.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
“Those deer ran right under my stand, but didn’t smell me,” Mathis said. “The deer were coming from a bedding area on another property, browsing through the grass field and making it to the beans just before dark.”
About 6:45 p.m., the Wilkesboro native spied what he called a “nice” typical buck walking into the soybean field with four other bucks, and they began to eat.
“This buck, nothing special, was 65 yards out, too far away for a shot,” he said.
Then a large-bodied deer with a high rack appeared. But it walked with a pronounced limp into the grassy section near Mathis.
It was the buck the hunter had waited to see. Fortunately for the hunter, it was closer to his stand.
“I ranged him at 45 yards,” Mathis said. “When he turned his head I could see (the rack) was really tall and he had good mass.
“It was getting near dark, so I put the 40-yard sight pin on the top of his shoulder.”
When he touched his trigger release, the arrow flew true and buried itself in the buck.
“He took three giant hops and went out of sight over a small knoll,” Mathis said.
He wasn’t quite sure what to think about his shot.
“A couple of deer were still in the field, hadn’t been spooked by my shot, and I thought I’d missed this buck,” Mathis said. “I also thought I’d heard the arrow hitting the beans (stalks), so that made me think I might’ve missed him.”
Mathis climbed down, and then circled the field far enough away so the deer wouldn’t detect him as he walked to his truck.
“I drove to a nearby gas station and got a soft drink and thought I’d return the next morning,” he said.
But he decided to visit a friend’s house and tell him what had happened.
“He said we should go look for the deer,” Mathis said.
The farmer-landowner had arrived at the field by then because he’d seen Mathis’ parked truck.
In the grassy section, the farmer found several big blood pools, evidence of a good hit by Mathis’ arrow.
“At about 9:30 p.m., (the farmer) stepped into the cutover and shined his light on the buck,” Mathis said.
Its 14-point rack had double split brow tines, a split left G2, a split left G3 and two sticker points, one off each main beam. Mathis judged its weight at 160 pounds.
“I haven’t scored it,” Mathis said. “I don’t think it’ll score that high, but it is a really high rack and pretty.”
The limping buck hadn’t been wounded but had a deformed right leg.
“It’s still my nicest buck,” said Mathis, who guessed the antlers may total 135 Boone-and-Crockett inches as a non-typical.
Mathis entered a picture of him with the deer in the 2011 Bag-a-Buck Contest, which offers monthly and grand prizes.
Click here to read the rules and enter photos of your own kills!
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