The area where Mitch Gaines hunts in central North Carolina is sparsely populated, but its deer population is large and the bucks are big. And for hunters who know how to find the right piece of hunting property, it isn’t necessary to own or lease hundreds of acres to tag good bucks in the Tar Heel state.
“I’ve only got a small 15-acre place to hunt, but it’s sure been good to me,” Mitch Gaines, a 40-year-old plant manager in Goldston, tells Outdoor Life. “I’d been seeing a big buck I called ‘Stickers’ on my little hunting spot this year. And I finally got a chance to take him on Nov. 8 during the muzzleloader season.”
Gaines had lots of trail camera photos of the deer, a main-frame 8 point with a split brow tine and extra points all over. He passed plenty of other bucks while waiting for a chance at Stickers, which finally happened the evening of Nov. 8.
“I got off work and, at about 4 p.m., walked to the spot where I’d shot a big 9-point last year. I had a tripod rest I placed on the ground overlooking a big hay field.”
He tucked into some cover and sat on the ground, and at 5 p.m. a large 7-point buck showed across the hay field from Gaines. For a time he thought about taking that deer — then another buck got his attention.
“I glassed him, and when I saw the odd point on his rack, I knew it was Stickers.”
It was a 130-yard shot. Gaines settled his muzzleloader behind its shoulder and squeezed the trigger.
“He was broadside and the bullet hit him perfectly. He fell right there.”
He got the estimated 200-pound buck out with an ATV and went home to dress the deer. He donated all the venison to a nearby family, he says, who were delighted to get fresh meat for their freezer.
North Carolina’s modern gun deer season opened Nov. 16, and the evening of Nov. 21 Gaines was back in his 15-acre hunting spot looking for the big 7-pointer he’d watched the night he shot Stickers. (Hunters can take two antlered deer in North Carolina.)
“I got off work that afternoon and went to the same spot on the ground where I shot Stickers,” he says. “I’d mowed a spot in the hay field so I could better watch a far tree line.”
Around 5 p.m. he started seeing deer and spotted a small doe at 180 yards.
“She was acting a little fidgety, then I noticed another deer behind her, which was the big 7-pointer I wanted.”
Again, Gaines settled his crosshairs behind the buck’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger.
“He was near the doe, and they both took off,” Gaines says. “The grass is tall where they ran. I knew I made a good shot, but I waited for my friend Jonathan Phillips.”
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Gaines, Phillips, and another buddy quickly located and retrieved the buck, which they estimate was five or six years old.
“I think the 7-pointer was older than Stickers,” said Gaines. “I’ll have them both mounted and will hang them in my home with the 9-pointer I shot from the same spot that I got my two bucks this year.”
Gaines also donated the venison from his 7-point buck to buddies.
“They’d been hunting pretty hard and hadn’t got a deer yet,” Gaines says. “They were tickled to take my buck.”
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