This group has been hunting WMAs for four decades, and they’ve mastered the skills to put some really nice bucks on the wall. More importantly, they have an absolute blast while they’re doing it.
Cory Coreil really only had one thing on his mind when he went hunting the afternoon of Nov. 26 – get his 12-year-old sister Julia a shot at her first deer. When the two young hunters climbed from the box stand, however, it was to retrieve a buck wearing headgear that included 22 points and later taped out at more than 178 inches.
Click here to see other photos of this monster West Feliciana Parish buck.
“Julia was hunting with me, and I was going to let her shoot,” the 17-year-old Zachary hunter explained to LouisianaSportsman.com. “I was going to aim for her, and she was going to pull the trigger.”
It was raining when the two settled in and began watching the food plot, and that was part of Coreil’s plan.
“We figured that after it stopped raining the deer would move,” he explained.
About 2:45 p.m., the last drops stopped falling. Thirty minutes later, Coreil’s strategy proved a success.
“About 3:15 (p.m.) he walked out at about 70 yards,” said Coreil, whose LouisianaSportsman.com alias is “Zachary36.”
At first, the deer was broadside, and the young hunters weren’t sure what they were seeing.
“I thought it was just a good 8-point,” he said.
But then Coreil looked at the deer through the scope.
“It turned and looked toward us, I guess checking the stand,” he explained. “When it turned, it was sort of angled and I saw a whole bunch of antlers on one side.”
His heart started racing, but he still didn’t realize what was standing in the middle of the green patch.
“It really didn’t register in my mind that it would be a 22-point,” Coreil said. “I thought it might be a 12-point, at best.”
That’s when a hunt designed to provide his sister a shot at her first deer changed.
“I really wanted (Julia) to shoot, but I told her, ‘You know what, Julian, just cover your ears,’” Cory Coreil said.
The hunter quickly moved the cross hairs into place and squeezed the trigger – and the deer disappeared.
“I was really nervous, so I kind of rushed the shot,” Coreil admitted. “After the shot, when I looked, I saw the back end of the deer running off in the woods.”
He looked at Julia Coreil, and asked what the buck did when the shot rang out.
“I figured Julia would see it, but she said, ‘”I don’t know; I was watching the gun. I didn’t know how loud it would be,’” Cory Coreil said.
So the mood became pretty tense, with neither Coreil sure if the shot had been true.
Meanwhile, father Gordon Coreil heard the shot and put the word out.
“I immediately texted (Cory’s) brother and mother,” Gordon Coreil said.
Ten minutes ticked by, but no word came from the two young hunters. After Gordon Coreil’s wife texted back for more information, the father began worrying that something might have happened.
As he picked up his phone, it rang. On the other end was an excited Cory Coreil.
“‘Shot at a big buck,’ was all he got out,” Gordon Coreil laughed.
Cory had waited to make the call until he and sister Julia had eased onto the food plot to look for blood.
“It was hard to tell where the deer was when I shot, so at first I couldn’t find any blood,” Cory Coreil said. “I was starting to kind of get disappointed because I thought I had missed.”
But the pair walked another 20 yards down the clearing, and found all the evidence they needed that the deer had been struck.
“We found a whole bunch of blood,” Cory Coreil said, who immediately called his father and blurted out the only words that came to mind.
Gordon Coreil hurried to the site, not really knowing what to expect. Cory Coreil’s largest buck to that point was a nice 8-point.
“When I got to the truck, which was between our stands, both (Cory and Julia) had their hands up in the air like they had horns on their heads,” Gordon Coreil said. “They had smiles from ear to ear.”
He asked how big the deer was, and Cory said it was “at least 14.”
Gordon Coreil figured that meant it met the club’s longstanding 14-inch inside-spread rule.
“I was thinking it might be a big 10-point,” he said.
After verifying the blood in the food plot was lung blood, the elder Coreil put daughter Julia in the lead to help teach her how to track a deer.
“They get about 35 yards back in the woods, and we can to a thicket,” Gordon Coreil said. “I figured I would push through to get them through that thicket there was a clearing on the other side.
“When I hit that clearing, I could see the deer on the other side of the clearing.”
He started counting points from the short distance, and that’s when his heart began pounding.
“I counted seven (points) on one side,” Gordon Coreil said. “I said, ‘Uh oh. Son, just give me a second.’”
Cory Coreil, who had yet to see the downed buck, was puzzled.
“My dad was breathing hard,” he said.
Gordon Coreil quickly collected himself, and put Julia back on the blood trial.
“I told them, ‘Go get y’all’s deer,’” he said.
The two young quickly spotted the deer, and rushed to the animal. They were shocked when they saw the crown of calcium topping the buck’s head.
“It was unbelieveable,” Cory Coreil said. “We couldn’t believe how big it was.”
Points sprouted all along the thick main beams. The inside spread was only about 15 ¼ inches, but that didn’t matter. The rack was rough scored at 178 6/8 inches.
Amazingly, it was a deer that had never been seen on the property.
“I’ve been hunting there for 16 years, and I’ve never seen it,” Gordon Coreil said. “There are 30 to 40 cameras in that area, and we’ve never seen it.”
Cory Coreil said he’s been told he should quit hunting because he’s unlikely to top this monster buck.
“I know I’ve seen a once-in-a-lifetime deer,” he said. “But I’ll still hunt.”
