Red River WMA gives up monster 11-point

Public-lands deer green scores at 155 inches Boone & Crockett.

Ryan Evans has spent a lot of time hunting public lands, and Red River Wildlife Management Area is so close to his heart that he bought some nearby property and has been working on building a camp.

But Evans had been so busy on the camp and squirrel hunting with his kids that he hadn’t had time to make a deer hunt on Red River. So it didn’t take much for brother to convince him to make a trip on Friday (Jan. 13).

Ryan Evans left that evening with a true public-lands trophy —a 155-inch 11-point.

“I’m still on cloud nine,” he said.

Evans, who goes by the alias “happytown” on the LouisianaSportsman.com forum, was excited when brother Chris (who killed a potential state-record typical archery buck earlier this season) called to set up the hunt.

He made a special trip to pick up a new Chapman pirogue he received as a Christmas present, and took Friday off of work.

Unfortunately, Chris Evans had to back out of the Friday hunt.

No problem: Ryan Evans boated in about lunch time and began scouting an area he had hunted a few years ago.

“There were so many leaves on the ground that I looked for little sloughs that had just enough water to allow me to move without making so much noise,” he explained. “I was scouting more than anything.”

By 1 p.m., he started seeing deer activity.

“I had moved 200 to 300 yards, and a deer got up,” Evans said.

The animal disappeared before Evans could get off a shot, but the sighting provided the hunter with confidence.

He continued easing along, and it didn’t take long to see other deer.

“I just happened to be looking up ahead of me, and there was a bunch of white flags moving across,” Evans said. “They weren’t running from me; they were more moving across in front of me.”

Evans moved another 50 yards, and then stopped to look around some more.

“Three deer come running toward me,” he said.

The does stopped in a thick area ahead, and one of them busted the hunter. Evans put the crosshairs on the neck of the deer and squeezed off a shot.

The explosion scattered the deer, and Evans found no sign that his bullet had made it through the thick to the deer.

“There was no blood or anything,” he said.

Evans soon heard more activity in the woods ahead of him, and decided he would stay put.

“I said, ‘There’s a buck chasing a doe or something,’” he said.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“I saw a deer angling toward me,” Evans said. “I could see the horns; he had his head to the ground.”

When he shouldered his muzzleloader and put his eye to the scope, Evans’ heart almost jumped out of his chest at the sight of the headgear moving across the woods only 75 yards away.

“I was pretty much freaking out,” he said. “I had just shot, and I didn’t think my heart could beat any faster, but it did.”

The rack was huge, but the deer was moving through a thick and was gone before a shot presented itself.

Frantic to get the deer closer, Evans made a bleat with his mouth. And it didn’t take long for the buck to show up again, heading toward the excited hunter.

The only problem was the deer remained obscured by thick brush, but Evans saw one opening.

“I said, ‘If he makes it through the thicket, that’s my shot,’” he said.

The buck not only stepped into the opening, it stopped there.

“I could see a little trash in the scope, but I put the crosshairs on him and squeezed the trigger,” Evans said.

As the smoke cleared, the buck could be seen running off.

“He just kind of loped off, and then the noise stopped,” Evans said.

After reloading his .50-caliber Encore, Evans eased through the woods and quickly found the deer piled up.

And the rack just took his breath away.

“He was everything I saw in the scope,” Evans said.

Ten mainframe points soared off the main beams the sprouted from bases measuring 5 1/2 and 6 inches in circumference. A 2- to 3-inch sticker off the right G2 rounded off the rack. The inside spread taped out at 17 inches.

Click here to see another photo of this huge buck in the LouisianaSportsman.com Deer Hunting forum.

But before the rack could be green scored, the deer had to be dragged a long way.

“I looked on the GPS, and I had 1,000 yards to go to get back to the pirogue,” Evans said. “I made it 100 yards and couldn’t handle it anymore; I had to gut the deer.”

It took almost two hours before he hoisted the animal into the small boat.

“He took up the whole pirogue.

But, oddly, the buck’s body size didn’t match the antler size.

“He only weighed 130 pounds without the guts,” Evans said. “He was run down.”

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About Andy Crawford 863 Articles
Andy Crawford has spent nearly his entire career writing about and photographing Louisiana’s hunting and fishing community. While he has written for national publications, even spending four years as a senior writer for B.A.S.S., Crawford never strayed far from the pages of Louisiana Sportsman. Learn more about his work at www.AndyCrawford.Photography.