No green score yet, but friends say Black has potential 200-class buck
A couple of weeks ago, you might remember the story of Hunter Black downing an impressive 14-pointer in Bossier Parish that measured 170 inches. As awesome as that buck was, Hunter’s dad Jon did him one better on Nov. 30 when he took down a 25-point that could measure at least 200 inches.
“Hunter and I have a passion of trying to keep up with what type of deer we have on our property in south Bossier Parish by the use of a number of trail cameras. We had selected two bucks we were going to seriously hunt this season, the one Hunter got on November 23 and the one I got a week later,” Jon said.
The buck Jon got had shown up on trail cameras for the first time in early November. As closely as they monitor the deer showing up on their cameras, they had no previous knowledge of this monster.
“We started getting pictures of him around one particular feeder and he’d be there between 3 and 4 am. The last photo we got of him was November 24 and he stayed gone for several days before showing up again a few days ago. These photos showed him at several different locations on the property, and two of the photos were daylight shots of him. Once in the morning and another in the afternoon,” Jon said.
There is a big thicket in the middle of the 1,200 acres they own that they don’t hunt, instead utilizing it as a sanctuary. An old road bisects the thicket, but no stands are positioned there. After evaluating what they knew of the big buck, they surmised he was spending daylight hours back in the sanctuary.
So on the afternoon of Nov. 30, Jon and his son decided to hunt both ends of the road that ran through the thicket.
“Before going out to hunt that afternoon, Hunter went around the perimeter of the thicket pulling cards from trail cameras. I had the wind in my favor, so I decided to sneak along the road in case the big buck made a move. Apparently, Hunter’s activity got the buck from his bed because as I was sneaking along, the buck suddenly burst out into the road some 50 yards from me,” Jon said.
Realizing that this might be his only chance to get a shot at the fleeing buck, Black yelled and the buck stopped and looked back from about 160 yards away.
“I didn’t have a good shot at all but as he started trotting away at a severe angle, I put the crosshairs of my .280 on him and squeezed the trigger. From his reaction, I felt I had hit the buck, but when Hunter and I went down there, I only found a little bit of hair and a few drops of blood. We looked for a while but could find no more sign and decided since it was quite cold that day, we’d just back out and give him time to expire,” Jon said.
The following morning, Hunter and Jon were back on stands and when they got down, Hunter didn’t want to give up on the big buck. He discovered the blood trail, found where the deer had laid and walked up on him where he had died.
The buck was estimated to weigh in the 200-pound range, but his headgear was his most impressive feature. Sporting 25 points, the rack seems to have an extra main beam on each side. Several friends who saw the rack later guessed he’d score at least 200 inches of bone.
Black said he will have him officially scored as soon as he finds someone who is qualified to accurately measure such an unusual rack.
Don’t forget to enter photos of your bucks in the Nikon Big Buck Photo Contest to be eligible for monthly giveaways and the random drawing for Nikon Monarch binoculars at the end of the contest.
Read other stories about big bucks killed this season by clicking here.
