Lincoln Parish deer measures 161 7/8 inches Boone & Crockett.
Sometimes when you’re deer hunting and you do everything just right, you still come home without a deer. Other times, karma is on your side and everything you do is wrong but you still bag a trophy.
The latter describes Ron Pace’s experience on Nov. 29 when – in spite of excessive noise, sweating profusely from lugging a bag of corn and wind blowing from his location to the corn pile – he shot the biggest buck of his life.
The Lincoln Parish monster has been green scored as high as 161 7/8 Boone & Crockett.
Pace had carte blanche to a church friend’s family property south of Dubach last year, but didn’t take advantage of the invitation until this season.
“I shot a weird-looking spike the day after Thanksgiving there and noticed that all the deer sign on the property was back in the thickets,” he said. “On the following Tuesday (Nov. 29), I went out in the early afternoon with the idea of sitting on my ladder stand until dark.
“The deer seemed to be moving into the thickets to bed down right around daylight and would stay until late afternoon before moving out to feed.”
When he crawled into his stand shortly after noon, he wasn’t comfortable with the direction the stand was facing, so he got down and shifted the stand on the tree.
“A metal ladder clanging against a tree is noisy for sure,” Pace said. “Then I walked down the lane to put out corn and decided I’d go corn another stand I’d hunted earlier.
“Walking half a mile up and down hills packing a 50-pound bag of corn was a task, and when I got back to my stand, I was sweating profusely.”
Since it was around 2 p.m. when he finally settled back down in his stand, his only hope was that there would be enough time before sunset to allow his scent to dissipate and any deer in the area to forget the clanging noise he’d made earlier rearranging his stand.
As the afternoon wore on, things finally started happening on the lane where Pace had placed corn.
“Along about 4:30, two does and two yearlings came out to the corn, but the does, especially, were very nervous,” Pace said. “I was afraid their jumpiness was the result of them getting a whiff of me. Soon, all four left the lane in a hurry.”
Pace was beginning to wonder just why the deer were so antsy when he looked down the lane and saw antlers – big antlers.
“I saw at least eight points, and I knew this was a buck I wanted a crack at,” he said. “I had to wait until his shoulder cleared some brush, and when it did I squeezed the trigger on my Savage .300 short mag and down he went.”
Actually, the buck that Pace walked up on and examined was a mainframe 8-point that carried an addition four stickers, making it a 12-point trophy.
He took the buck to TP Outdoors, which scored it at 161 7/8, and then to Simmons Sporting Goods where the score was about an inch less.
Inside spread was 17 7/8 inches, one G-2 was almost 12 inches and each main beam stretched over 2 feet in length. Bases were over 5 inches around. Approximate weight of the bruiser was around 250 pounds.
“I saw an advertisement in a magazine where you could go to one of those high-dollar places to hunt and, if you shoot a 160-class deer, you pay $8,500,” Pace said. “Mine that size didn’t cost me a thing.”
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