Macon County’s Fiddler

Jennifer Fields with a Macon County buck named Fiddler that had 7 1/2-inch bases.

Jennifer Fields has done what most hunters will never do after she killed a buck with baseball-bat bases that measured 7 5/8 inches. The 7 1/2-year-old 10-pointer was taken in Macon County on Nov. 15 and weighed 240 pounds.

“I am still in shock that I shot his deer, a true deer of a lifetime,” said Jennifer.

Jennifer and her husband Jimmy named the deer “Fiddler,” like a fiddler crab, because the left side of the buck’s rack had declined over the last few years. The Fields had three years of history with this buck, and the previous landowner had four years.

“Fiddler had only daylighted on camera four days in three years,” said Jennifer. “Last year, he showed up in daylight almost the same week as this year, and at the same stand, a spot that I had picked out myself two years ago and asked my husband to help me set up and hunt.”

On Nov. 7, Fiddler showed up with a doe on camera in the daylight.

“The wind was wrong to try and hunt him that afternoon, but he showed up again. Heartbroken, I thought I had missed my opportunity at harvesting this giant buck,” said Jennifer.

The next eight days resulted in some sleepless nights for Jennifer. She soon be able to rest easy.

“On the evening of Nov. 15, I told my husband I was going to my stand,” said Jennifer. “After an hour or so, I had not seen a deer. Well, at 4:45 a small doe showed up, and when I looked behind her, there he was! He came out 125 yards up the lane. The doe was about 50 yards from me, and he started walking right to her. I thought he was for sure going to wind me or see me as he got within 60 yards of my stand. I knew there was no way I was going to take a bad shot and shoot him facing me. Praying he would turn broadside, the doe started to walk in the pines and he turned broadside to follow her. I wasted no time placing a shot from my 6.5 Creedmoor behind his front shoulder. He immediately went down on his front legs, kicked and disappeared.”

Jennifer called her husband, who was hunting 500 yards away.

“I could barely speak!” said Jennifer. “He assured me that I had made a good shot after telling him that the deer went down on his front legs. We waited about an hour as to not push the deer in case he was still alive.”

Tense moments resulted after only finding a small piece of meat on the ground where she shot the buck.

“We decided to give the deer a little while longer and call our friend Colby Garrett, who has tracked a few deer for us just to be safe,” said Jennifer. “It was two hours before he could get there, and it was the longest two hours of my life! It didn’t take long, and the shot had found its mark, and he was down 50 yards from where I shot him. The years of work, the sweat equity and the time that my husband and I put into hunting this deer all paid off.”

At the local processor, the owner said he’d never seen a buck with the mass that Fiddler had.

“My deer had 7 5/8 inches at the base and carried 4 1/2 inches most of the way out his main beams, a true buck of a lifetime,” said Jennifer.

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