We couldn’t close out the season without reporting on these beauties.
Bucks were still falling when the February issue of Louisiana Sportsman was sent to the printers, and there were some real monsters taken too late to be included in the annual Deer of the Year story.
However, each animal deserves mention, so here are more stories of true wallhangers that were taken during the 2010-11 hunting season.
Setting the bar high
Ken Bordelon has certainly killed plenty of deer, but he had yet to score a real bruiser when he climbed into a ladder stand overlooking a food plot on the Avoyelles Parish farm he helps his father manage.
“The biggest deer I’d even killed was an 8-point that was 14 inches wide,” the Vick hunter said.
When he left the stand Jan. 3, Bordelon had set a new personal best, one that he’ll likely never match.
Bordelon was settled into the stand by 2:15 p.m., and it wasn’t long before he was watching two yearling does being chased around by a young 4-point.
“He was a lot more fired up about breeding than (the does) were,” Bordelon laughed. “I watched them play all afternoon.”
A button joined the group about 4:30, and the two little bucks busied themselves trying to prove their manhood.
Things became more interesting when a big doe stepped out about 15 minutes later, and Bordelon decided to play with a rangefinder he received for Christmas.
“The rangefinder said she was 235 yards away,” he said.
And then something else appeared that almost made him drop his new toy.
“While I was watching her, he stepped into the view of the rangefinder,” Bordelon said. “It didn’t take me long to know that I needed to shoot it.”
The buck was massive, with heavy antlers going everywhere.
“When he stepped out, I could see those antlers going backwards,” Bordelon said.
He picked up his rifle, but wasn’t able to do anything with it at first.
“It took me a few minutes to calm down enough to take a shot,” he said.
Fortunately, the buck wasn’t about to leave the doe.
“He wasn’t really running her, but he was definitely with her,” Bordelon said.
Once he slowed his heart rate a bit and swallowed the adrenaline that was seizing his throat, Bordelon placed his cross hairs on the big buck and squeezed the trigger.
“He reared up like they do when they get shot, but he didn’t run off,” the hunter said. “He sort of trotted into the weeds, and then he turned and looked back at the doe.
“He acted like nothing had happened.”
This time, there was no hesitation.
“I thought, ‘I shot you for horns, not meat,’ so I shot him again,” Bordelon said.
The deer collapsed, and almost immediately Bordelon’s phone was ringing.
“My father was hunting in the next stand, and he wanted to know what I shot,” he said. “I said, ‘I really don’t know, but he’s got a LOT of points on his head.’
“I told him it was probably about a 14-pointer.”
After hanging up, Bordelon settled back to catch his breath and ensure the deer was dead. However, he couldn’t stand the anxiety of the wait.
“I said I was going to wait five or 10 minutes, but I probably just jumped over the shooting rail and ran over there,” Bordelon laughed.
When he reached the deer, it was still alive.
“He was still flopping around and trying to get up, so I shot him again,” Bordelon said.
Every shot had connected, but it was the third one that finally put the massive non-typical deer down for good.
And that’s when the hunter really got to inspect the rack. He was floored.
There were 23 scoreable points on a super-heavy frame of antlers that measured about 6 inches at the bases and held mass measurements of at least 5 inches all the way out.
“I knew he had a lot of points, but I really had no idea that it was going to (score) over 200 inches,” Bordelon said.
In fact, it wasn’t until his wife posted a photo on her Facebook page that the enormity of the kill began setting in.
“My phone didn’t stop ringing until 11 o’clock that night,” Bordelon said. “People were saying it would score 180, 190. I said, I didn’t know about all that.”
Simmons Sporting Goods later taped the 18½-inch-wide rack at 242 4/8 inches Boone & Crockett.
Bordelon said the 225-pound buck was aged at only 4½ to 5½ years old.
Change of scenery
By Glynn Harris
Doing the same things the same way at the same places day after day can become monotonous. Sometimes a break from the mundane routine and a change in scenery is good for the soul and can get your batteries recharged.
West Monroe’s Jay Lagrone, 33, is a construction worker who is a member of a hunting club near his hometown. He has hunted there most of the season, and was able to arrow a doe with his bow earlier. However, he became bored and wanted to look at some different woods, so on Jan. 14 he decided to do something about it.
And he brought home a 180-class buck.
“I have a friend who has some land in Jackson Parish over toward Eros who lets me hunt there,” Lagrone said. “On that Friday, I had the day off so I decided to take advantage of my friend’s offer and went down to Jackson Parish to hunt.”
Lagrone had no high expectations of getting a crack at a deer; he just wanted a change of scenery.
“I’m not what you would call a ‘fancy’ hunter with all the modern stuff,” he said. “I’m just a poor old country boy.
“I took a green plastic chair, found me a good spot to sit against some trees in the edge of the woods that gave me a good view of a pasture.
“I pulled up some sticks and limbs around me to sort of make a blind, and was sitting and freezing my tail off but enjoying the scenery.”
It didn’t take too long for the action to begin, though.
“I’d been sitting there an hour and a half when I noticed a couple of does come into the field, and something seemed to be chasing them,” Lagrone said. “A spike came out and was following the does around when the spike suddenly left like something was after it.”
Half an hour later, that “something” appeared and made the scenery Lagrone was enjoying much more interesting.
“I looked up, and this big old buck stepped out at the same spot where the does and spike came from,” he explained. “When he first came out, I didn’t get a good look at his head except to tell he had plenty of horns and they looked heavy.”
When the buck stepped into clear view at 130 yards, Lagrone took aim, squeezed the trigger and the buck dropped in his tracks.
“While I was walking up to him, I called my wife to tell her I’d shot a big one and I tried to talk to her and count points,” he said. “I finally told her I’d have to call her back because there were so many points I couldn’t talk and count at the same time.”
Indeed, the task of counting and talking would be difficult for anyone because the 260-pound buck with unreal headgear sported 24 points, including a drop tine.
The inside spread was 16 inches with main beams measuring 21 and 20 inches. The unusual non-typical rack was palmated and measured 8¾ inches around the center of the rack, Lagrone said.
The buck was taken to TP Outdoors in West Monroe, and entered in the big-buck contest the store annually hosts. Scorers at the store came up with an unofficial measurement of 186 2/8 inches.
“You can bet I’ll be looking at the scenery on that piece of land in Jackson Parish a lot more next season,” Lagrone said.
Lost time
By Glynn Harris
We’ve all heard about the absent-minded professor. You know, the one who scratches his pancakes while pouring syrup on his itching foot.
Well, Kim Marie Tolson, biology professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, is no such professor, at least to those who know her.
However, on the afternoon of Nov. 7, there was a two-minute period of time of which she has absolutely no recollection. We won’t, however, attribute that mental lapse as being related to her profession. She just has no memory of the time between 4:42 and 4:44 pm — when she realized she was standing over what turned out to be a 172-inch buck.
Tolson is privileged to hunt a prime piece of property in north Ouachita Parish, some 2,700 acres where hunters are allowed only by invitation. She utilizes her expertise as a biologist to assist the property owners in record-keeping, suggestions for harvest rate, soil sampling, recommendations for the need for lime, fertilizer, etc. The property owners reciprocate by allowing her to hunt on the land.
“The terrain on this area is mixed with some agricultural lands, WRP areas with some early and some mature in age, bottomland hardwoods with some cypress/tupelo,” Tolson explained. “On the afternoon of Nov. 6, I was hunting an area I like to hunt because I can usually take some does here, and my plan was to take one and start putting some venison in my freezer. I’d been sitting awhile when a small 8-point buck came into view, and he was milling around — finally getting downwind of me — and took off.”
Tolson was hopeful the little buck hadn’t alerted all the other deer in the area the next day when she got back into her stand for a late-afternoon hunt.
“That same little 8-point came back out, and I was relieved that I apparently hadn’t spooked him too bad,” she said.
In a moment, she saw the top of some nice antlers working through the salt bush that grew in the area.
“I could tell from what I saw of his rack that this was a mature buck, but I didn’t get too excited; I’m usually the last one on the place to shoot a buck,” Tolson said. “When he stepped out, though, my heart was racing when I saw how big he was.
“I did something next I still can’t explain — I looked down at my cell phone to see what time it was since folks are always wanting to know, ‘What time did you see him’? The time was 4:42.”
Tolson put the crosshairs on the buck, squeezed the trigger and the buck dropped in its tracks. Then, thoughts of that professor referred to at the outset came into play.
“I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of getting out of the stand and covering the 110 yards to the buck,” Tolson said. “The first thing I remember after pulling the trigger was me standing over the buck poking him with my rifle barrel.
“I knew I couldn’t load him myself, so I called a friend to come help me.”
She later realized she had lost two minutes somewhere between pulling the trigger and reaching her trophy.
“Later I looked at the time when I called the friend and it was 4:44,” Tolson said. “I had shot the deer, climbed out the stand, gone to him and made a phone call all in two minutes.”
The buck the professor bagged was a trophy, indeed. Sporting 12 points, the deer carried main beams of 25 3/8 inches each, had a 17 1/8-inch inside spread with the most impressive measurement being bases of 5 1/8 inches each, but gaining inches as the measurements between the G-1and G-2 were greater and those between the G-2 and G-3 even larger.
The buck weighed 235 pounds, and was greenscored at TP Outdoors at 172 inches.
Patience pays off
The East Feliciana buck was driving Michael Nicolosi crazy. It’s not that the hunter had seen the deer repeatedly, but the trail cam photo captured just after bow season opened was just eating him up.
“The first picture I got is this big, heavy-horned buck,” said Nicolosi, aka 24604edd on LouisianaSportsman.com. “That’s what made me go back every day.”
But, oddly, the Plaquemine hunter soon was ready to just stick a doe when he hurried from work to his stand Oct. 19.
“I was not really thinking I’d ever see him,” Nicolosi said. “Sure, I’m hunting him, but I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to shoot a doe for some meat.’
“I mean, what are the odds of me seeing this deer? Slim and none.”
And then a rack buck walked out to feed in the corn pile Nicolosi had set up. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a buck.
“It had 8 points, but it was a little deer,” Nicolosi admitted. “It didn’t weigh 100 pounds.
“This little, bitty 8-point was dead under me.”
Just the thought of a buck standing was all it took for Nicolosi to get excited.
“I’m shaking; I’ve got buck fever,” he laughed.
But he never really considered shooting it, as he figured he had plenty of time to put meat in the freezer.
That patience paid off 20 minutes later, when the young buck got nervous.
“He turned and looked behind me, and kind of dropped 3 or 4 inches,” Nicolosi said. “I thought maybe some does were coming in.
“He then turns completely around and looks dead away from me.”
Nicolosi stole a quick glance over his shoulder, and almost fell out of his tree.
“I looked back and that big son of a gun was standing 15 yards behind me,” he said. “He’s slipping to my right, and I don’t have a shot.”
However, the deer soon turned and headed straight into the feed station.
The now-frantic hunter turned as much as he could, and then fumbled to get his release attached to his string.
“I had a hole in my glove that I’ve been needing to fix, and my trigger got caught in that hole,” Nicolosi said. “Every time I put the release on the string, click, it would open up.”
Finally, Nicolosi freed his trigger and got ready for the shot — just as the buck walked behind a tree and provided time for the hunter to draw.
“Then I’m telling myself, ‘Think of the pin, think of the pin, don’t think about the horns,’” Nicolosi said.
When the buck’s ribcage cleared the tree, an arrow streaked toward it. Nicolosi said he could see the arrow’s path because he was using a Lumenock.
“When it hit him, it disappeared,” Nicolosi said.
The buck sprinted away, and Nicolosi sat in his tree shaking. However, he still wasn’t sure what he had shot.
“All I knew was that he was a big deer,” Nicolosi said. “When I first saw him, I said, ‘Don’t look at his horns.’”
When he finally climbed down, Nicolosi was stunned that the arrow was nowhere to be found. And there was not a drop of blood.
He returned with uncle Bob Peden, and the search continued without success.
“We couldn’t find any blood,” Nicolosi said. “I went from mega high to mega low. I’m saying Hail Marys: ‘Just let me see one drop (of blood).’”
Finally, Peden just started walking in the direction the buck ran — and a few minutes later, Nicolosi heard a distant call.
“He yelled, ‘Hey, I’ve got him!’” Nicolosi said. “You could have knocked me over with a feather.”
As adrenaline spiked once again, Nicolosi tried to run straight to his trophy, but was forced to crawl because of thorn trees in his path.
When he finally reached the buck, he couldn’t believe what he found: It was the very deer he had hoped to ambush. And it was monstrous.
The buck had 10 main-frame points with an extra, small sticker.
“I guess you could call it an 11-point, but I call it a 10,” Nicolosi said.
The inside spread was a not-too-impressive 14½ inches wide, but the mass was incredible.
“The bases measured 6½ inches,” he explained. “But to show you how much mass it had, the G2 measurements were 5 inches, the G3 measurement were 4 5/8 and the G4s measured about 4 inches.”
It was greenscored by Spillway Sportsman at 151 7/8 Pope & Young.
