East Baton Rouge doe hunt ends with 160-inch buck

Venice Charters guide takes time out to kill brute deer during Oct. 28 bow hunt.

Andy Crawford

Capt. Brent Roy of Venice Charters took time off the water to kill this 160-class buck yesterday (Oct. 28) in East Baton Rouge Parish.

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Sometimes nothing goes your way when you hit the woods, but then there are the times when everything just falls into place.

Jackson’s Brent Roy was fortunate enough to be in that latter category when he slipped into his stand yesterday (Oct. 28) morning to try and stick a doe on his best friend’s East Baton Rouge Parish property — and finished the hunt by sticking a 160-class buck.

And it was all because every necessary star lined up.

Roy, who operates Venice Charters, knew there was a big buck on the property because his buddy had told him of some recent trail-cam photos. But he hadn’t even looked at the images.

And he wasn’t much worried about it when he headed for the stand.

“We decided we wanted to shoot does because neither one of us had any meat,” Roy said.

That decision dictated hunting select stands that wouldn’t threaten their chances later on for shooting bucks.

“With the full moon, we didn’t go to our buck stands,” Roy said. “We thought we’d bump deer at those stands.”

So the two hunters eased in to dedicated doe stands just before daylight, with the  light of the full moon illuminating their way.

Shortly after settling in and watching the sun rise, Roy’s stand site was invaded — and not by deer.

“Blackbirds came in and started feeding by the thousands in the acorn trees around me,” he said. “They were eating those acorns.”

The noise was intense, and Roy knew the odds of seeing deer were slight while the raucous feeding frenzy continued. But the bowhunter learned something interesting by watching the marauding flock of birds.

“Blackbirds will eat half of the acorn, and the other half falls to the ground,” Roy explained.

He was frustrated by the noisy troop overhead but, as it turned out, the blackbirds and the discarded acorn pieces were the first two stars moving into place.

“When the birds left and everything quieted down, I heard the deer coming out,” Roy said.

Seven does came in from behind the hunter’s stand at about 8:20 a.m. and began vacuuming up the pieces of mast as quickly as they could.

Roy gave the deer enough time to settle into the feed, and then picked out a nice doe he could visualize lining his freezer.

And then another star clicked into place.

“I was looking at the doe I was going to shoot when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye,” Roy said.

An eighth deer was lapping up acorns to the hunter’s 8 o’clock position, and when Roy turned his head to give it a quick look his heart immediately began pounding in his chest.

This deer that had been hanging back was a buck, and it was a shooter — even under the strict trophy scheme used on the property.

The massive deer was only about 20 yards away, and feeding away from the concealed hunter.

Roy’s bow was still hanging to his left, so he eased to a standing position and carefully removed the bow from its hanger.

“I waited until he had his head down, feeding,” the hunter said. “I just settled myself down.”

Once he had his nerves under control and the buck’s head was down, Roy slowly pulled to full draw without alerting the other deer.

“What probably saved me was that (the does) weren’t worried about me; they were worried about the thousands of acorns on the ground,” Roy said.

And the final star moved into place at 8:28 a.m. as the deer picked its head up and took a step to its left — providing a shot at its vital.

Roy didn’t hesitate, loosing his arrow to make the 22-yard shot. It cut into the deer’s side, and then it fell out after the buck made a few leaps.

“When it came out, I saw blood spurt out,” Roy said.

As the deer kicked and made it’s escape, Roy got a better look at the deer and knew it was a monster buck.

He sat for a few minutes to let the adrenaline coursing through his body subside, and then he eased out of the stand to begin the long wait until he could track the deer.

“We let it lay for two hours,” Roy said.

When he and his buddy finally returned to the stand site, they found a 60-yard blood trail that ended with Roy’s prize.

The deer was a brute, weighing in at about 240 pounds. The headgear sprouting from it’s head matched the body size.

Twelve mainframe points adorned 24 ¼-inch beams that enclosed 17 ½ inches of air. Four more stickers brought the total to 16 points. The bases were 5 ¼ inches in circumference.

The initial greenscore was about 169 inches Boone & Crockett.

“I’ve never killed one that big ever, even with a gun,” Roy said.

He said his experience seeing big bucks really helped stop him from making a rookie mistake when he first saw the huge deer.

“If I had gotten nervous and picked up my bow (as soon as he saw the buck), it would have been over,” Roy said.

But he also acknowledged that he was just in the right place at the right time.

“It was just all luck,” Roy said. “Everything lined up, God was with me and it worked out.”

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