Big 10 For Teen’s First Solo Buck

By early December, most every deer hunter who has put in the seat time throughout the season begins to feel that hunting energy diminish. The peak of the rut might be over in your neck of the woods. The deer, and especially mature bucks, are back to being nocturnal creatures that don’t even offer daytime trail-camera pictures, much less a daylight sighting to a hunter in a stand.

Well, a Putnam County teen’s exciting hunt last week should be your motivation to stick with it.

Chase Carter, a 14-year-old who lives in Greensboro, knew there was a really big buck on the 200-acre Putnam County tract he was hunting.

“I had the deer on camera, and I was hunting him in the afternoons after school,” Chase said. “The day before I saw three bucks and some does but not this buck.”

That was on Wednesday, Dec. 4, definitely late-season conditions in Putnam County. Chase was hunting over a food plot planted with Durana clover, winter wheat and chicory.

“The next day I went back and was sitting in the stand but hadn’t seen any deer until almost 5:30,” Chase said. “I looked up, and he was coming across the middle of the food plot. I was shaking so bad I didn’t know what to do. This was my first buck I ever killed when hunting by myself.”

Chase was able to calm his nerves and get his .243 steady on the buck.

“I got my gun up and shot him, and he fell but got back up and went into the woods. I called my step-dad, and he came to help me. We went into the woods about 50 yards, and the biggest deer I have ever seen was laying there.”

The buck has a 5×4 main-frame with one kicker point off the G2 tine on the right side. It has been taped at 150 total inches, and it easily would have topped 160 if it had been a 5×5 main-frame. Even after the rut, the buck had a live weight of 195 pounds.

Chase is entered in GON’s Truck-Buck Contest and the Youth Big-Buck Contest. In both contests, the highest-scoring buck each of deer season earns a spot in the grand-prize Shoot-Outs, which are pellet-rifle competitions. The grand prize in Truck-Buck is a new Chevy Silverado truck from John Megel Chevrolet. The winner of the Youth Big-Buck Contest Shoot-Out gets a $3,000 shopping spree at Adventure Outdoors and a weekend hunt with Woods-N-Water.

See all the contest entries and sort by week and county at www.gon.com/truck-buck-entries. Only GON members and immediate family members are eligible, so get your GON subscription now for just $19.95 for an entire year.

Chase Carter’s 10-point buck taken in Putnam County will gross right at 150 inches, with 10-inch G2s and G3s.