Big bucks fall every season, but it seemed monstrous deer were hiding behind every bush this year.
The 2011-12 season kicked off in style when Cecilia’s Nick Thibodeaux arrowed a buck that green scored 160 inches Pope & Young while hunting on Sherburne Wildlife Management Area.
The kill turned out to be a hint of things to come, as monstrous bucks fell at a steady pace throughout the season. By the middle of December, more than a dozen deer scoring over 145 inches had been discovered by Louisiana Sportsman staff.
The year continued, with more than a dozen huge deer kills uncovered thereafter.
And that’s just the deer posted on LouisianaSportsman.com or found by the magazine’s writers.
“Those deer that are making your articles are truly rare animals,” the Department of Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Scott Durham said. “These deer have to get 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 years old to get that size; even then, these huge bucks are freaks.
“Once you get over 150 (inches), they are rare.”
Durham said he can’t say the 2011-12 season will be record-setting because official scores must still be obtained on the deer, but it’s obvious something is going on.
“It seems like it’s really cranked up the last couple of years,” he said.
There are a couple of factors Durham believes plays into the apparent uptick in monster deer.
“There are hunters who are just done shooting deer,” he said. “They’re trophy hunting; they’re passing deer.
“There is a venison burnout in this state, I’m convinced.”
Match that with the regulations limiting each hunter to three bucks per season, and the result is that more bucks are likely living to truly show their potential.
“Guys are passing deer,” Durham said. “Today, if a guy kills a couple of bucks, he’s probably going to think twice before he kills that third one, unless it’s a big deer.”
He said this is evident in data collected as part of the Deer Management Assistance Program.
“There is a shift from a harvest of 50 percent, even 75 percent of 1½-year-old bucks,” Durham said. “We have clubs where 50 to 60 percent are now 4½-year-olds plus.”
Whatever the reason for this season’s bumper crop of incredible bucks, hunters aren’t complaining.
Here are photos of all the big bucks we’ve uncovered this season, along with the stories of those bucks killed after mid December.
Stick-with-itness leads to 180-inch giant
Relax, and kill a monster buck
Wrong decisions turn out right