Teri Henley reminds me of the kid who goes out on his first bass fishing trip and lands a 10-pounder. What will he do for an encore? On Oct. 7, Henley started her first season to bow hunt, and she arrowed a monster 9-point buck that set the bar very high for her future hunting forays.
“I got my first bow on my birthday in August, and had never hunted with a bow before,” Henley explained. “I started practicing and on opening day, I managed to take a doe. The next day, I went to Mississippi with some friends and shot an 8-point buck.
“This one I got here on Oct. 7 was my third deer to bag with a bow.”
This third deer was the one that set the bar mighty high for this farm and ranch owner from Tallulah. Henley hunts on boyfriend Dick Brown’s 3,000-acre farm and ranch in Madison Parish, land on which she was hunting when the bowhunting gods smiled on her.
“I knew this big buck was around; I’d been getting his pictures on my trail cam since early September,” Henley said. “I’d seen his pictures last year, but he had grown a lot in a year, both in body size and antlers.”
Click here to see trail-cam photos of the bruiser buck.
On Oct. 6, Henley climbed into a ladder stand, and couldn’t believe what happened.
“… (T)he big buck came out and stood facing me 10 yards away,” she explained. “There was no way I could draw without him seeing me.
“He finally walked away.”
So she couldn’t wait for the next hunt, but woke to find conditions had changed.
“The next day I went back to my stand but the wind was wrong, so I walked in a different direction, hoping my scent wouldn’t spook the deer,” Henley said. “After a bit, I heard deer coming and they were coming down the trail I walked in on.
“I just knew I’d get busted, but somehow I didn’t.”
The first deer to appear was a 4-pointer that walked right in front of the hunter. Right behind it was a big 11-point that stopped only about 10 steps away from the stand.
“There was no way I could draw on him and, beside, I was really waiting on the big one,” Henley said. “The 4-point and 11-point had been running with the big one I was after.”
But Henley worried that she would be seen by the two deer.
“The 11 point was so close that I just closed my eyes thinking maybe if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me,” Henley said.
Her patience was rewarded in just a few minutes.
“I heard another deer coming and, sure enough, it was the big buck,” she said. “The 11 point wouldn’t let him come in for awhile, but he finally walked off and here came the big one.”
As the monster eased in, Henley couldn’t have asked for a better setup.
“He walked around sort of behind me giving me a chance to draw,” she explained. “When he stepped into an opening, I started to put the sight pin on him but since I shoot from a sitting position, I couldn’t quite get the pin where I wanted it.
“So I had to edge up on the seat just a bit. I got lucky; the buck didn’t spook and I was able to put the arrow right where I was aiming.”
The arrow hit home, and the buck bolted.
“The buck ran, and when he passed in front of my Cuddeback camera it snapped a picture that later revealed the arrow protruding from his side,” Henley said. “I watched the buck run about 100 yards, wobble and then fall.”
The monster buck sported nine typical points, had an inside spread of some 18 inches but the score soared because of the sheer mass.
Henley took the buck to Simmons Sporting Goods in Bastrop to enter in their annual big buck contest, and the green score was 182 3/8.
Incidentally, the deer weighed a whopping 295 pounds.
Teri Henley may be a novice bow hunter, but that 11 point buck she passed to get to the big one might want to be careful.
