Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 16, 1994 TAG: 9405170019
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``I got into the 20s two or three times,'' said Hatcher, who lives in Bedford County ``I kept skipping over points, because I was getting pretty excited. So I went ahead and field dressed it so I would calm down a little bit.''
Hatcher had good reason for being nervous. His buck carried a huge rack with enough points to hang all the hats in a Saturday night honky-tonk. It is a candidate for the No. 2 spot in the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association's Longhunter Society Big Game Record Book.
The No. 1 buck in the national records for black powder hunters is the 31-point Warren County trophy taken during the 1992 muzzleloading season by Jim Smith of Front Royal.
``That means Virginia is going to have the No. 1 and No. 2 bucks in the book from back-to-back seasons,'' said Matt Knox, deer research biologist for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Smith's deer, which is Virginia's all-time top whitetail, scored 259 7/8 nontypical under the national Boone and Crockett and Longhunter Society's measuring system. Hatcher's buck has been scored at 242 6/8, a figure that is expected to be submitted shortly to the Longhunters Society, said Melvin Mitchell of Forest, the taxidermist who did the mount. The current No. 2 buck measures in the 230s, a society spokeswoman said.
The buck killed by Hatcherwas taken the third day of the early muzzleloading season on a Bedford County mountainside. Hatcher said he knew there was a good buck using the stretch of private property, where he had hunted much of his life, because he had seen impressive scrapes, rubs and tracks during the earlier bow season.
``I didn't know how big it was, I hadn't seen it. Judging by the rubs and the tracks, it was a pretty good size.''
About 9 a.m., Hatcher heard something in the leaves below him. He had taken a stand against a red oak tree at the edge of a maturing clearcut. His best chance, Hatcher had figured, would be to catch a buck moving from its feeding area, in the lowland farm fields, up the mountain to a bedding area in the clearcut. He had reached the stand before daylight, coming down the mountain from the back side, in order not to disturb any deer in the low country. The breeze was blowing up the mountain.
Hatcher saw a doe first, then a buck close at her heels.
``I knew it was a decent buck. I could just see bits and pieces of both of them as they came through the woods.''
He cocked his .54 caliber Layman rifle and steadied it toward a small clearing 60 yards below him. He hoped the buck would pass through it; if not, getting a shot would be tricky, he said.
``The doe crossed into the opening then stopped. I just held the gun ready. I still wasn't sure I was going to get a shot at the buck, because it was fairly thick. She went on around the hill and the buck stopped. I wasn't sure if he was rubbing or pawing or just sniffing the areas or what. He may have suspected something. He couldn't have smelled me. Maybe he was being extra cautious.''
When the buck moved through the area, Hatcher pulled the trigger.
``I took off running down the side of the mountain after I reloaded and almost ran past him. I went over and picked the rack up and said, `Great God!'''
After Hatcher's nerves had calmed, he took another stab at counting the points.
``I got up to 32-33-34-35. All at least an inch long.''
The buck had a towering nontypical rack that included a drop tine the size of a billy club and scores of small, rasp-like points at the base of the antlers.
When Max Carpenter, a representative for Boone and Crockett, scored the rack he had to put a piece of tape on each point he measured to eliminate confusion. Carpenter, a retired Department of Game and Inland Fisheries wildlife biologist who lives in Dayton, counted 40 points that were an inch or longer.
The buck is expected to score well this fall in Harrisonburg during state competition. It unofficially has been scored 256 5/8 under Virginia's measuring system, which differs from the national method. That would put it about midway in the top 10 of Virginia's all-time bucks. Jim Smith's buck scored 296 under the Virginia system.
by CNB