High school junior downs impressive 155-inch deer during the rut
Taylor Brown, a 17-year-old junior at Delhi Charter School, did a charitable thing on the cold afternoon of Jan. 3: She let her 9-year-old year old sister Hannah sit in the comfort of her enclosed box stand, while she bundled up against the sub-freezing chill and headed for a lawn chair 400 yards away.
But her chill turned to a thrill when she got the scope of her Savage 7mm .08 on a big 14-point Madison Parish buck.
“We hunt on our family-owned cotton farm in Madison Parish,” she said. “I had my chair set up facing a food plot where winter grass was growing. On one side was a cotton field; on the other side were woods where big hardwoods and palmetto grow.”
Brown grew up in a family that hunts, but her interest really kicked in when she was drawn for a youth lottery hunt when she was an 8-year-old.
“I killed an 8-point buck on that hunt, and I’ve been serious about it ever since,” she said.
She had her eye out for one particular buck that hung around the area, but her trail camera had gotten only one nighttime image of it back on Oct. 22. Chances of the buck making a daytime appearance weren’t the best except for one thing — the rut was taking place in Madison Parish that week.
“I just love to hunt so I was really just looking for a deer to shoot,” Brown said. “While I had the big buck in the back of my mind, I had decided to take a crack at a deer, any deer, that afternoon.”
Sitting and shivering on her chair from 4 until the afternoon light began fading, she was beginning to give up any hope of seeing a deer when she looked up and a doe stepped out at 140 yards.
“I watched the doe as she stepped into the food plot and began grazing on the winter grass we have there,” Brown said. “I thought about trying for her when I noticed the doe kept looking back into the woods. I decided to wait and see if there was another deer she was looking at.
“All of a sudden, the doe took off and this big buck rushed out of the woods after the doe. I was shocked and amazed that I was actually getting to see the big buck I had on camera only one time. I knew my only chance at the buck was taking a running shot at him so I followed him with my scope and when I got it on his shoulder, I hit the trigger. The deer ducked down, his tail was down and he took off back into the woods.”
Calling her mom who picked up Taylor’s sister, they came to see if she had actually hit the deer and if so, to help with the recovery.
“We began looking without finding any sign of a hit and my mom called a guy who has a blood-trailing dog,” Brown said. “About that time, I found some blood and we found the buck only 30 yards from where I’d shot him. I had hit him right behind the shoulder.”
The big buck sported a heavy 14-point rack, with long tines and big bases that carried mass to the tips. The deer weighed 232 pounds, and was later green-scored at 155 ⅝ inches.
