Claiming North Carolina's Number 3 spot in BTR's irregular category for centerfire rifle, 24-year-old Preston Allred outdid himself with an impressive 17-point stud that totaled 192 4/8 for Buckmasters Trophy Records.
Preston dedicated more time to his target buck this 2022 season than any deer ever before, averaging 4-5 sits weekly, and was beginning to convince himself this deer would never see daylight again.
"I hunted this deer harder than I ever have. Almost every day when I got home from work, I was in the woods in one of three tree stands I have in a two-mile radius," Preston told Buckmasters. "I kept getting photos of him at night in two different spots about 500 yards apart, and this went on for about a month and I just got tired of hunting him and decided to give it a break."
The Milesville Monster, coined by Preston and his buddies, showed up after a two-week hiatus around 6:15 p.m. December 5 and had the boys buzzing.
Preston originally planned on going with a friend and tagging a couple slickheads the following afternoon, but with a little convincing, he was back on the heels of this Caswell County giant.
"Dylan and I were planning on killing a couple does and he said, ‘Man, we need to go in there and hunt that deer.' I didn't want to go, it was raining and cold. I had just bought this new gun and didn't want to mess it up but was like okay, let's see what happens," Preston said.
Preston and Dylan sat through a cold, consistent downpour and almost got out of the ladder stand early to glass fields on the family farm when a spike came out and started feeding on one of the shooting lanes.
At 5:13 p.m., still raining and closer to last light, Dylan noticed a deer coming in and put his binoculars up but couldn't mutter a word.
"Dylan nudged me to get my gun because it's him. It looked like he was going to leave and head down into the bottom but turned back and came toward the corn pile," Preston said. "I didn't show him no mercy."
The boys got down and went home for an hour or so until Preston couldn't take it anymore.
"It's raining, we're leaving right now," he exclaimed. "We have to go find him."
With a crowd of help, Preston recovered his buck 70 yards from the treestand and took it for a ride in his pickup truck.
"I didn't know what to say after putting my hands on the rack. I was like, man, you done, done something," he said. "I've never killed a deer like this. It's a one-of-a-kind experience."
The Milesville Monster has matching 12-inch P2s, 22-inch main beams and was measured by Buckmasters scorer Tony Royal.
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