Hall’s Concordia Parish buck green scores 153 inches
Lauren Hall, a senior in pharmacy school at the University of Louisiana-Monroe, is set to graduate this May.
But she filled one big prescription a little early when she downed a giant 8-point buck last month on Lakeside Hunting Club near Ferriday in Concordia Parish.
“We had trail cam pictures of a big 8-point buck earlier this season, but had not seen any photos lately,” Hall said. “I was hunting on Dec. 18 on our club on the back side of Lake St. John that afternoon. I was in a box stand while my boyfriend was bowhunting from another stand a few hundred yards away.”
Settling into her stand, she looked out the window and saw a nice 9-point buck step out. She eased her gun — a 7mm-08 — out the window with plans to shoot, but something caught her eye from another window.
That’s when she recognized the big 8-pointer that she really had her eye on.
“The 8-point had a nicer rack with more mass, and it was the one I really wanted to take so I eased my rifle to that window,” she said. “I felt I should call my boyfriend to be sure I was doing the right thing.”
While she was talking to him and explaining the situation, the buck walked back into the woods and was gone.
Or so she thought.
“I waited a few minutes and the big 8 came back out at 175 yards. Since it was late in the day, my boyfriend had told me to try for a neck shot so we wouldn’t have to track a wounded deer,” Hall said. “Plus, he said with a neck shot, the deer would either drop on the spot or it would be a clean miss. I did what he suggested, put the crosshairs on the neck and squeezed the trigger. The buck dropped right there.
“I called me boyfriend all excited, telling him I’d dropped the big 8 and he got down from his stand and came running. We were both ecstatic when we got to the deer and saw just how big he was.”
The buck was a genuine trophy, sporting a very symmetrical — almost identical — rack. When the buck was scored at Simmons’ Sporting Goods in Bastrop, there was only a ½-inch difference between the sides.
The buck measured 153 ⅜ inches, with a 19 2/8 inch inside spread and tipped the scales at 200 pounds.
Currently, Hall’s buck is in fifth place in the women’s category, but ranks in second place in the 8-point division at Simmons’.
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 optics at the end of the contest.
Read other stories about big bucks killed this season by clicking here.
