Cureton’s buck green scores 151 inches
Blake Cureton and his dad live in Lake Charles and lease 3,400 acres from timber companies near the village of Goldonna in Natchitoches Parish.
The father-son duo are owners of Custom Metal Fabricators in Southwest Louisiana, and often take friends and customers to hunt on their lease.
“We have been in the lease for five years and try to manage the deer population on our acreage,” the younger Cureton said. “We usually put out 25 to 30 trail cameras around the lease and in so doing have been able to identify the deer we want to target and those we want to pass on.”
One particular buck had been identified, and it was the Blake’s plan to have his dad sit on a stand near where the 140-class buck had been showing up.
“On Nov. 12, a cold front had blown in and I had my dad sit on this particular stand that morning. After the morning hunt, I tried to persuade dad to go back to the same stand again but he declined, saying he thought he had enough for one day,” he said. “I asked him if it was OK with him if I hunted that stand and he said, ‘Sure, go ahead.’”
As luck would have it, the big 140-class 10-point buck that weighed 237 pounds stepped out and Cureton downed it.
Fast forward two weeks, and the scenario was repeated once again on an even larger buck.
After an unsuccessful morning hunt, Cureton had his eye on a big buck that had started showing up during daylight hours and again tried to talk his dad into sitting on that particular stand. One more time, Cureton’s dad declined the offer.
“It had been raining for a couple of days and after being convinced dad wasn’t going to hunt that afternoon, I asked him if he minded if I got on that stand and again, he readily agreed,” Cureton said.
Under dark skies, Cureton watched several does come to the food plot and eventually leave. By then, only about 10 minutes of daylight remained.
“I had made up my mind to call it a day and was probably within 10 seconds of stowing my gear and leaving the stand when I decided to give it one more look. I was surprised to see a big buck standing in the lane 70 yards away,” he said. “Putting the binoculars on him, I recognized it as the big 12-point we had on camera.”
With the crosshairs of his Ruger 7 Mag on the buck’s shoulder, he pressed the trigger and the deer vanished. Walking to where the buck was standing, there was no blood nor evidence of a hit.
He called a friend hunting on another stand and learned the friend had also shot a buck, so he first helped his buddy locate that deer. Afterwards, the duo went back to look for Cureton’s buck.
“It was totally dark and for two hours we looked in the wet woods for any sign of the deer or evidence of a hit and found nothing. I decided to come back the following morning to continue the search when I decided as a last resort to look over an area I hadn’t checked before,” he said. “I saw imprints in the pine straw of a running deer, followed the tracks and found the buck piled up no more than 50 yards from where I shot him.”
The buck was a dandy, sporting 12 points on a 10-point frame with split brow tines, and had an inside spread of more than 19 inches with main beams measuring 26 inches. Bases were 5 ½ inches, and the buck tipped the scales at 218 pounds and measured 151 inches B&C.
Don’t forget to enter photos of your bucks in the Nikon Big Buck Photo Contest to be eligible for monthly giveaways and the rand drawing for Nikon optics at the end of the contest.
Read other stories about big bucks killed this season by clicking here.
