10-pointer fell on second day of hunting season
The skies opened and the bottom fell out the first weekend in October across North Louisiana, as a weather system with accompanying cold front sloshed through. But Bill Petrus, a West Monroe businessman and avid bow hunter, didn’t let that bother him.
He waited until Mother Nature’s onslaught was over, climbed into his stand and arrowed a big Madison Parish 10-point that green scored 154 6/8 inches, Pope and Young.
Petrus, co-owner of TP Outdoors and host and producer of TP Outdoors Adventures, said it wasn’t the first time he had seen the monster deer.
“I had gone over to our private club last week, and while I was working there I got a glimpse of this big buck, so I took my nephew over (Saturday, Oct. 5) to see if he could get a crack at him; I was filming the hunt for my television show,” Petrus said. “We had a good hunt and saw quite a few deer, but the big one never showed.
“I was able to film my nephew arrowing a doe.”
Petrus decided to stay over and hunt Sunday, but a heavy deluge that dumped 1 ½ inches of rain on the area overnight kept him off the stand until things had settled a bit.
“Around 8 (a.m.) the rains had let up, so I decided to go to my stand, which is situated on a flat that floods when there is heavy rain,” he said. ‘I saw several deer but nothing I wanted to shoot.”
That afternoon, after the skies cleared, Petrus decided to go back to the woods and see if the clearing weather would get the deer up and moving — and his plan worked to perfection.
“I got on my stand around 2 (p.m.), and the deer started moving around 3:30,” Petrus said. “I had put some Ground Pound, a feed supplement made by Buck Bomb, out about 25 yards from my stand, and several deer started feeding on it.
“Then, as the afternoon wore on, I looked out and saw the big buck at about 300 yards. Right before dark, he came to the Ground Pound and started feeding, and that’s when I shot.”
The G-5 broadhead launched from his Matthews MR 8 bow did the trick.
The hunt didn’t end there, however. After trailing the buck some 350 yards and hearing him get up and run, Petrus decided to resume the search Monday morning.
“It was supposed to get down to the mid-40s Sunday night; the deer was bleeding good, so I felt it would be OK to leave him,” the hunter said. “The next morning, my nephew joined me, and we located the deer in water, still alive, where I finished him off.”
The deer was a genuine brute, weighing 278 pounds and sporting a main-frame 8-point rack with two stickers. The inside spread was 19 6/8 inches, and the bases measured 5 6/8 inches each.
The buck was estimated to be around 8 years old.
Interestingly, Petrus filmed this hunt by himself, as his camera man was out of state and the hunt will be featured on an upcoming episode of TP Outdoors Adventures.
“That was a challenge, but I never seem to do things the easy way; I always do it the hard way,” Petrus chuckled.
Click here to read about other big bucks as they are killed.
