Monroe man wins first monthly Bag-A-Buck contest

Harald Drost is the first monthly winner in the Bag-A-Buck contest for 2010.

Harald Drost of Monroe occasionally hunts on a piece of property near Lake Wylie that belongs to a friend. The friend concentrates on killing coyotes and doesn’t hunt deer the way Drost does, but his trail camera works, and when he sent Drost a trail-cam photo of a big buck, Drost got interested.

He climbed up in a tree stand overlooking a small food plot on the afternoon of Sept. 18, and it only took him two hours to strike gold. Shortly after 7 p.m., he arrowed a 10-point, 191-pound buck.

Drost was just as fortunate on Sept. 30 when he was drawn as the winner of North Carolina Sportsman’s first monthly Bag-A-Buck contest presented by Rivers West.

He will receive a $25 gift certificate from Overton’s, an Apex Base Top from Rivers West, a Rossi youth model .410/.22LR, a North Carolina Sportsman t-shirt and decal, a Tink’s scent kit, Realtree hats and Monster Buck DVDs, a Plano storage box, a truck-bed liner from Line-X, and a copy of Cooking on the Wild Side by Ty Conti, the magazine’s publisher.

In addition, Drost will remain eligible, along with every other hunter who enters the contest through December, for the grand prize: a 2-day deer hunt from Fourth Generation Outfitters, a Weatherby rifle and $25 gift certificate from Overton's, a Leopold scope, a fiberglass deer blind from Four Sons Marine, a Line-X truck-bed liner and a full set of clothing from Rivers West.

“The deer came through an opening where we’d planted a little food plot, maybe only 30-by-60 (feet),” Drost said. “It’s sort of a funnel, and a lot of deer go through there.

“He came out at about 7:08, with a 6-pointer. The 6- came first, and this one came in behind. A couple of minutes later, two spikes came in with a 4-point buck. I had five bucks out there.

“I wasn’t positive this was the same deer, but he looked big, and he was running the two spikes off. They came in behind me, with the wind on them, and one of them must have busted me and stopped and stomped once. I thought they had me, but then they settled down and left,” he said. “I got ready and stood up to shoot the big buck, but my bow is six years old, and one of the limbs squeaks every once in a while when you draw it – and it did. The 6-point buck looked right at me; I had to stay still and hold it back, but he finally put his head down.”

The big buck was at 19 yards when Drost let fly from his PSE Avenger. The arrow took the buck, which was quartering away slightly, though both lungs, and the 100-grain Muzzy broadhead lodged in the buck’s off shoulder.

“He ran about 45 yards in a semicircle, to the left, before he piled up,” Drost said.

The buck had a fine 10-point rack with a 15-3/4-inch inside spread. Drost field-dressed him quickly because of the heat, but he took both the carcass and the gut pile and weighed them together, coming up with 191 pounds.