This season’s cold temperatures led to the felling of an impressive number of monster bucks.
Louisiana hunters over the past few years have produced more and more big bucks, and the state’s top deer biologist said there seems to be a simple reason for the increase of monster deer.
“It’s not science, but I keep hearing anecdotal reports that there are more big bucks being killed,” Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries’ Scott Durham said. “It’s definitely a trend that more and more guys are managing for age.”
And killing big bucks is really all about bucks putting on the years.
“You’ve got to let them get older,” Durham said. “You’ve got to let them get 4½ and 5½ years old to reach their potential. Really 5½ years old.
“At 4½ years of age, a buck has reached about 90 percent of its potential.”
Durham said there probably is a connection between the reduction in buck harvest and the introduction of the three-buck limit.
“There will be a lot of guys who will go ahead and shoot, and then they’ll hold that last tag for a big deer,” he explained. “What that does is reduces your buck harvest and recruits more deer.”
As bucks in the state continue to age and grow monster racks, Durham said it is proving that Louisiana can be a real contender in the big-buck arena.
“The potential has always been there,” Durham said. “We have great potential in the state; I don’t know if we have ever focused on that.
“Our state has always been a state of hunter/gatherers — just stack them up.”
However, that culture is changing, and big-racked deer are being killed all over the state.
“They may come from anywhere,” Durham said. “When you manage for age and the more really mature bucks you have, you’re going to increase the potential for those extremes.”
As the 2010-11 season was wrapping up, Louisiana Sportsman found as many of the big deer as possible — and the results back up Durhams claims.
Here are the stories of some of the monsters taken during the past five months.
After the fire
Andy Anderson’s hunting season began tragically when his home caught fire Oct. 7, burning to the ground and taking all of Anderson’s hunting gear with it.
“Everything in my gun safe melted,” he said. “The gun safe was fireproof to 1,800 degrees, but everything melted except some Leupold scopes. They were ruined, but they fared better than everything else.”
A cousin came to the rescue, dropping off a Browning A-Bolt completed with a Redfield scope and a Bennelli shotgun.
Exactly a month later, Anderson used that rifle to take a monster buck that later greenscored more than 230 inches.
Amazingly, Anderson had seen the 26-point deer two seasons ago, and missed it at a mere 75 yards.
“He was the same size two years ago,” said Anderson, who goes by the screen name “GrandBayouLabs” on the LouisianaSportsman.com reports forum. “The problem was I had a 14-power Leupold scope on my rifle, and I could see his head too good.
“That’s what messed me up: I looked at his horns and missed him.”
On Nov. 7 of this year, after working until midnight the evening before, Anderson headed back to the 600-acre Red River Parish lease of which he’s been a member for three decades.
“I slept late that morning,” he said. “I got up and turned on my computer and watched the LSU highlights, and I told my wife I was going to sit on the stand for about an hour.”
He never made it to his stand when he reached the lease about 8 a.m.
“About 50 feet from the stand, I saw he had just walked out (on the pipeline),” Anderson said. “He turned and walked away from me.”
The deer was about 150 yards away, and all Anderson knew was that it was a really good deer.
“I ran the last 50 feet to the stand and propped up on it,” he said.
The scope on the rifle his cousin gave him wasn’t a high-end model, so it wasn’t nearly as clear as Anderson’s scope that was destroyed in the house fire. So he had problems picking the deer up, which turned out to be a good thing.
“When I finally found him, I couldn’t see him that good,” Anderson said. “He was walking away from me, and then he turned broadside and stopped.”
The hunter never peeked at the buck’s rack; instead, he placed the crosshairs on the deer’s vitals, squeezed the trigger and dropped it in its tracks.
That’s when Anderson got his first really good look at the rack.
“He fell backwards, and I could tell he had better horns than I thought,” Anderson said. “I was thinking 10 to 12 points.”
The shot broke the deer’s back, and the 230-pounder was trying to crawl away with its front legs when Anderson reached it. After dispatching it, the hunter stood gaping at the calcium build-up on the animal’s head.
“I thought, ‘I ain’t never going to kill one like this one again,’” Anderson said.
Antlers literally sprouted from atop the deer, with most of the points growing from two paddles that replaced the normal main beams. But the right brow tine also ended in a number of points.
Simmons Sporting Goods roughed the deer out at 234 1/8 Boone & Crockett inches, and it currently leads the non-typical category of that store’s big-buck contest.
Anderson’s taxidermist aged the deer at 6½ years old or older.
The picture buck
Jena’s Jay Broadwell admits he’s not really a trophy hunter. He’s shot enough deer that he doesn’t even get excited any more when he pops one.
So he wasn’t all that pumped on Dec. 19 when he saw some trail cam photos of a huge buck on the 1,500-acre piece of property he hunts in Catahoula Parish.
“I actually took one of the land owners duck hunting (on Catahoula Lake), and on the way back he asked me, ‘Have I shown you the pictures of a deer we took on that place?’” Broadwell said.
The landowner, Dr. Jeffery Seiler, was rightly proud of the deer, which had antlers growing all over the place. In fact, it was impossible to get a real estimate of how many points the buck carried.
Broadwell acknowledged the size of the deer, but really didn’t think much of it. In fact, when he climbed into his stand that afternoon about 1/3 of a mile from where the photos were taken, the hunter wasn’t even worried about killing a deer.
“The only reason I was sitting in that stand was I’ve killed five hogs out of it,” Broadwell said. “They’re tearing the place up, and I’m tired of it.”
After settling into the box stand about 2:30 p.m., the 60-year-old spent the next 2½ hours looking at nothing. The stand was set up in the middle of the thicket overlooking a funnel between planted pines and the edge of a duck-hunting area.
“I can see two duck blinds from my stand, and the deer walk the edge of that water,” Broadwell said. “Well, it’s dry now, but the deer are still walking that trail.”
Just after 5 p.m., he saw a deer step out of the pine thicket to his right.
“I saw it was a big deer, and when I opened the (stand’s) window I said, ‘That’s a really good deer,’” Broadwell said.
But he didn’t spend too much time looking at the rack; he only knew it would meet the 8-point-or-better criteria Seiler and property co-owner Paul Squires have set.
“I saw he had five points on one side, so I figured he’d have antlers on the other side,” Broadwell said.
The hunter quickly put his 7 mm rifle into position, and placed the cross hairs on the deer’s vitals for the roughly 125-yard shot.
“I put the cross hairs on the shoulder, and then I said, ‘No, I’m going to shoot him in the neck,’” Broadwell said.
When he squeezed the trigger, the buck dropped in its tracks.
All Broadwell could see at that point was the five points he had already seen, and he still wasn’t all that excited. In fact, he calmly packed everything up and walked to his truck without ever checking on the deer.
“I drove to within 5 feet of the deer,” he said. “I was just thinking, ‘How am I going to get this deer in the truck? It’s a big deer.’”
Still, he had no clue what was on the ground.
Broadwell climbed out of the truck, and walked to the deer. And immediately recognized the rack.
“I called Dr. Seiler and said, ‘Do you want to know how many points the deer in that picture has?’” Broadwell chuckled. “He said, ‘No. You didn’t.’
“I said, ‘Hold on, he’s on the ground. Let me count the points.’”
The count tallied the five points Broadwell initially saw on the deer’s left side — plus a bonus point growing out of the deer’s head on that side. On the right side were another eight points.
The inside spread later taped to only 15½ inches and the main beams weren’t exceptionally long — 20¼ and 18 7/8 inches. But everything else about the 14-point rack was just huge.
“One side (of the rack) is palmated, and the other side is much bigger than my fist — and I’m a big man,” Broadwell explained. “They’re massive horns.”
A Columbia sporting goods store taped the deer out at 205 5/8 inches.
In typical Broadwell fashion, however, he wasn’t overly excited.
“I was just going to cut the antlers off and leave them at the camp,” he laughed.
Other camp members, including one who is a taxidermist, couldn’t believe that. And, fortunately, Broadwell reconsidered.
“I got to looking at the deer and said, ‘I’ll never see another deer like that. It’s a 14-pointer,’” he said. “So I decided to mount it.”
The nose-bleed buck
By Glynn Harris
Forty-six-year-old Randy Fuller from Haughton is fortunate that Red Oak Timber Company, from which he leases a 100-acre plot of mixed pines and hardwoods, hasn’t gotten around to cutting all the big pines on the property.
Fuller likes to climb big, mature pines to nose-bleed heights, which gives him a decided advantage over the deer on the property. He has his climbing stand secured to one of those big pines, and on the morning of Dec. 11 he shinnied up to a dizzying height of 50 feet to settle in for a deer hunt.
“I like to climb high because I can see down into thick stuff where if I’d spent time on the ground cutting and trimming, there’s the chance a buck would get suspicious,” Fuller explained.
That strategy paid off that day when he bagged a 190-inch trophy buck from his high perch.
“I was running a little later than I like to get on my stand,” Fuller said. “It was already starting to break daylight as I got settled in, made sure my safety harness was secure and I was using my range finder to get a read on distances when I heard something about 25 yards behind my tree.
“Looking down, I saw what I could tell was a shooter buck — couldn’t really tell how big because he was walking along through some thick brush.”
There are no food plots on the property, nor had Fuller cut shooting lanes. His vantage point from high in the Bossier Parish pine gave him a good view of an abandoned log set and an old road that led to it.
“I had to turn around to get a look at the deer I was hearing and really couldn’t tell too much about his rack,” Fuller said. “I saw some mass and felt it for sure was a shooter.”
Getting a shot required some adjustment, however.
“I shoot from my right shoulder, but because of the location of the buck I had to shoot from the left side,” Fuller said. “The buck was in some really thick stuff, but when I saw his head go through a little 6-inch opening, I grunted with my voice just as his shoulder slipped into the opening.
“He stopped, I fired and the deer flipped over and fell not 5 feet from where he was standing when I shot.”
Fuller could see the buck lying in the thick brush, but his feathers fell when he could only make out three tines.
“I was afraid the buck wasn’t nearly as big as I first thought, and I was starting to feel really bad,” he said. “When I got down from the tree, I had to walk around to the other side of where he was lying, and it was only then I was able to see what I’d shot.”
That sight stopped him cold.
“I just leaned up against a tree, my heart throbbing out of my shirt,” Fuller said. “I couldn’t believe what a rack the buck was carrying; it looked like one of those bucks you see on TV shows.”
The rack sported heavy mass, 15 points, including a drop tine, with an inside spread of 18½ inches. The deer, estimated to have weighed 220 pounds before the rut, tipped the scales at 189 pounds.
Fuller took the buck to a scorer in the area who measured the rack at 198 4/8 inches. He later took the deer to Simmons Sporting Goods in Bastrop for entry in the store’s big buck contest, and there it was scored at 191 inches.
Even though Fuller’s trophy buck is not likely to be in the winner’s circle when awards are given out at Simmons in March, he’ll be rewarded for years to come when he shows off the mount of his “tree topper” buck.
Third time’s the charm
Mike Shirley was sitting a stand on a 680-acre piece of property in Red River Parish on Dec. 3 when a big buck walked out right beneath him. And he missed. Twice.
“The deer walked out so close, Dad shot and missed, and the deer ran 25 yards and my dad shot again and missed,” son Dennis Shirley said.
Two days later, the 195-inch buck was 75 yards from the same stand. Only this time, Dennis Shirley was holding a rifle. And he didn’t miss.
The buck was actually captured on a trail cam two years ago, when it was a mere mainframe 8-point.
“He had three stickers on one side and one sticker on the other,” Shreveport’s Shirley said. “He looks like a totally different deer now, but those stickers were the same.”
The deer had gone AWOL during the intervening time, never making an appearance in front of hunters or on trail cams.
And Mike Shirley had no clue that was the deer that had stepped out.
“He just knew it was a really good deer,” Dennis Shirley said.
After the double miss, Mike and Dennis figured the deer would never be seen again.
Then they checked their cameras on Dec. 4.
“We had a picture of him that night,” Dennis said.
The monster buck, which the elder Shirley knew carried a huge growth of calcium, appeared unfazed by the experience earlier in the day.
So the stand was hunted Dec. 4 and Dec. 5 in hopes that it would appear again.
It was the evening of Dec. 5 when Dennis was on the stand, and he was having a good time.
“I had two nubbin bucks out feeding, and then two other bucks came out and started fighting (in front of the stand),” he said.
As evening darkness gathered, the sparring deer broke contact, and one of the deer began looking back into the woods, walking back and forth.
That got Shirley’s attention, and he was getting ready for any eventuality when a big buck stepped out at just 75 yards. The hunter had no idea of the size of the rack because the light was failing, but there was no doubt it was a shooter.
“It looked liked his ears just went straight up,” he said. “I knew he had a lot of mass and he was big.”
Shirley quickly put the cross hairs of his 7 mm Magnum on the deer, and squeezed off a shot. The deer went down right there.
Normal hunting protocol calls for a wait of at least 30 minutes, but Shirley forgot about that.
“I waited about 2 seconds,” he laughed. “I got down, and the deer were still under the stand.”
He hurried to the downed buck, and was shocked at what he saw as the final light of the day failed.
“The first thing I saw was just massive horns on top of his head,” Shirley said. “I saw kickers coming out all over the place.
“I said, ‘Damn it.’ That’s the only way I could explain it.”
He hurried to get his father, and when they returned the Shirleys saw something amazing.
“There was a little 6-point about 4 yards from (the dead deer) walking up to him,” Dennis Shirley said.
When they had chased off the curious young deer, Mike Shirley confirmed what his son suspected.
“He said, ‘That’s him,’” Dennis Shirley said.
The deer had 20 scoreable points, although Dennis Shirley said there were a few other points adding to the palmated mass of antlers. The inside spread was a respectable but not astounding 16 inches, but Shirley said the outside spread showed the mass carried on the crown of antlers.
“The outside spread measured 22 inches,” Shirley explained. “The (diameter) measurement between the G1 and G2 on one side was 11 inches.”
Simmons Sporting Goods greenscored the deer at 195 5/8 inches Boone & Crockett.
And to make the kill even more special was the fact the 28-year-old Shirley had yet to kill a true wallhanger.
“I thanked (Mike Shirley) for missing more than he thanked me for killing him,” Dennis Shirley laughed.
Pee-in-the-scrape buck
Jackson’s David Hill arrived home from work Dec. 29 after working a dog shift, and hurried to the little 100-acre piece of property he hunts in East Feliciana Parish. On the way to his stand, he did something unusual.
“I’ve read about it, and I started peeing in scrapes,” said Hill, who goes by “ddhill” on the LouisianaSportsman.com forum. “Once I started peeing in them, the deer started tearing up scrapes.”
So when he found a new scrape beneath an overhanging privet near his stand, Hill took care of business.
“I pulled it out and sprayed it down,” he said.
After zipping up, Hill walked past a corn pile about 10 yards from the scrape and climbed into the box stand to wait.
It didn’t take long for there to be some action.
“I was putting my head gear and gloves on, and I looked and there was a deer right in that corn pile,” Hill said.
With the light still fairly faint, Hill couldn’t see if it was a buck or doe. A big pine tree used to help hide the stand from feeding deer didn’t help matters.
The hunter put his rifle in position to check the deer out through the scope, and saw the animal moving back and forth.
“When I saw it (through the scope), it was actually looking behind it,” Hill said.
Before it was even possible to determine what, if any, antlers the animal wore, the deer spooked.
“It bolted, kicking up corn,” Hill said.
Confident he hadn’t done anything to spook the deer, Hill had one thought.
“I thought, there’s a buck coming,” he said.
So Hill smoothly swiveled his cross hairs about 3 feet to the edge of the privet thicket — just in time to catch a deer stepping out.
“The deer walked right in the cross hairs,” he said. “He came out with his head down, and I thought he was a 10-point we had been getting pictures of.”
Without hesitating, the hunter squeezed the trigger, and the deer simply disappeared.
“I didn’t see him fall. I didn’t see him run,” Hill said.
At that point, Hill was calm. But as the minutes ticked by, the shakes started setting in.
“I called my brother-in-law who was hunting on another stand, and you can usually tell if someone has hit a deer,” Hill said. “He said, ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t tell.’”
So in a bit of panic, Hill exited the stand.
“I told my brother-in-law I don’t know if I jumped out of the stand or slid down the ladder,” he laughed. “I know I didn’t hit too many rungs on the way down.”
Hill saw a welcome site as he walked to the trail from which the deer appeared.
“I could see the white of his belly,” he said. “When I had shot him, it spun him around. He was in the edge of the thicket under a privet.”
Still thinking he had downed a nice 10-point, the hunter took a few more steps — and his breath left him.
“I saw that double main beam, and thought, ‘Holy cow!’” Hill said.
The buck was massive, later tipping the scales at 225 pounds, and its rack was equally impressive. It featured 13 scoreable points and a third long main beam.
Hill pulled out his cell phone to take a photo to text to his brother-in-law, but there was a problem.
“I was shaking so bad I could not get the camera to take a clean picture,” Hill laughed.
Amazingly, the animal had never been captured on the six trail cams placed around the property.
The rack featured a 16 5/8-inch inside spread between the two primary main beams, with a 19-inch inside spread using the 22-inch extra main beam. The right primary main beam was 24 inches long, while the left beam taped out at 22 4/8 inches.
The unofficial Boone & Crockett score totaled 178 5/8 inches.
To make his season even better, Hill killed a 135-inch 8-point from the same stand Jan. 4.
That was more than his hunting buddy could stand.
“My brother-in-law is so mad at me right now that I told him we would switch stands and see if it’s luck or location,” Hill laughed.
The plan B buck
Frank Coyne and two of his sons have made the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge lottery rifle hunt a tradition during the past several years, but this year’s hunt didn’t start off very well, and the trio didn’t even try to go to their primary area on Dec. 11.
“One of my son’s 4-wheelers wouldn’t start,” Coyne said. “We were late getting in the woods. So actually, the spot I went to was Plan B. We figured there would already be hunters in our first choice.”
That change of plans was fortuitous, since an hour after settling into his stand, Coyne downed a 19-pointer that later greenscored 165 2/8 Boone & Crockett.
Coyne and his two sons, 23-year-old Matthew and 22-year-old Patrick, had thoroughly scouted the couple of days prior to the lottery hunt, keying on scrape lines.
“There’s a lot of sign in that area,” the elder Coyne said. “I also have a really good friend who is a bowhunter, and knows a lot more (about hunting) than I do, and he said there is good pressure around the area.”
After the difficulties with the ATV that first morning, Coyne finally settled into his stand at 6:25 a.m. He was overlooking a slough that provided a break in the thick undergrowth.
His sons also had located scrapes along the high side of the slough, and had told their father that’s where any deer should appear.
After an hour without seeing anything, movement caught Coyne’s eye. A deer was stepping out of the thick growth.
“He was going straight for one of the scrapes,” the Covington hunter said. “I saw the left side of the rack. It was tremendous. I thought it might be a decent 8-point.”
That’s the last time he caught even a glimpse of the antlers.
“When I put him in the scope, all I saw was his tail,” Coyne said. “He was going dead away from me.”
Coyne thought he would have to watch the buck disappear into the thicket again, but the deer finally turned to the right.
However, its head was quickly behind a tree, and Coyne still couldn’t see exactly how big the buck was. That was probably a blessing, as he was able to concentrate on the shot
“He stepped between two trees and stopped,” Coyne said. “I had a little window, and I figured I better shoot.
“When I shot, he fell right there.”
The hunter could see only the buck’s body as he reloaded his .308, and that was his first hint that he had killed a mature buck.
“When he fell, I could see his body, and I thought, ‘Man, that’s the biggest deer I’ve shot,’” he said.
When the deer didn’t budge in a few minutes, Coyne climbed out of his tree and eased the 75 yards to his trophy.
“I was good up to that point,” he laughed. “When I saw it, I was like, ‘That’s my buck of a lifetime.’”
The antlers stuck up over the thick body, and took Coyne’s breath away.
“The first thing I saw was the mass,” he explained. “The thickness of the antlers blows out anything I’ve seen or shot.”
And then he started counting the points.
“That was comical,” Coyne said. “I kept coming up with 21, then 20, and I was like, ‘I can’t get it right.’”
He finally settled on 19 scoreable points, with two more stickers that were less than an inch long.
“Immediately, I called (Matthew) and he was, like, ‘There’s no way. You’re lying to me,’” Coyne said.
The team decided that the younger Coynes should remain on stand until 9:30, while their father dragged the big animal to a nearby trail.
“I didn’t get the deer anywhere close,” Frank Coyne laughed.
The boys were stunned by their father’s kill, and Coyne said there was actually only one thing that would heighten his excitement.
“The only thing that could have made it better is if one of (his sons) had killed it,” Coyne said. “I don’t go looking for that stuff; I’m happy with a doe.”
Management buck
By Glynn Harris
When Milt May purchased a 3,000-acre tract of land in Madison Parish six years ago, it already had a head start on helping May fulfill his purpose for the purchase — to turn the former farmland into a mecca for waterfowl. Appropriately, the tract was named Waverly Waterfowl, was enrolled in the Wetlands Reserve Program and had been planted in thousands of ash, cypresses and oaks.
Ducks haven’t been the only species to respond, however. Deer, which were few and far between when May bought the property, have increased dramatically in number. And the benefit of that was reinforced Dec. 18 when 24-year-old Corey May knocked down the best buck ever taken from the property — a 150-inch stud.
The kill came while Corey May, Milt May’s son, was hunting with friend Tyler Breed while home from Louisiana Tech University.
“Tyler and I had gone to the camp with plans to be on stands at daylight Saturday (Dec. 18),” Corey May explained. “We overslept a bit and didn’t get on our stands until around 6:30.”
The stand May was hunting has been known as a “honey hole” stand because some of the biggest bucks taken on Waverly Waterfowl have come from this area.
“I have had trail cameras out since before the season opened, and had been able to isolate three different mature bucks,” the forestry and wildlife management student said. “We try not to shoot a buck younger than 4½ years old.
“This particular buck got my interest because it was obvious he had the age and his rack was impressive, with palmation on one side.”
Although late getting in his stand, things began happening quickly.
“I had been in my stand just a few minutes, had seen a spike and some does, when I looked up far down the lane and saw this big buck following a doe,” May said. “Fortunately, the doe was walking my direction where there was a food plot, rice bran and corn we’d put out.”
At first, the buck was so far away that the hunter wasn’t real sure how big it was.
“When I spotted the buck, he was some 300 yards away and, frankly, the closer he got, the more nervous I got,” May said. “It felt like my heart was about to explode.”
When the buck, which had continued walking in a straight line following the doe, got to about 80 yards away, it turned broadside and gave May the shot he wanted.
“I squeezed off a shot, and he dropped in his tracks,” May said. “Ironically, I had shot a big buck from this stand two years ago that I watched walk virtually the same path this buck did, turned where this buck turned and fell when I shot within 5 feet of where this buck fell.”
May’s big bruiser buck sported nine points with the left side being significantly palmated. The buck carried an inside spread of 17½ inches, and scored 152 3/8 at Simmons Sporting Goods.
The weight was an impressive 265 pounds.
May credits the property’s wildlife management scheme to growing the big buck. Two rules involved in this management are hunters can only shoot bucks they will mount and shooting plenty of does.
To prove just how important the taking of antlerless deer is to May, he did his part while celebrating the shooting of the highest scoring and heaviest buck ever taken at Waverly Waterfowl
“While I was walking up on my buck, a big doe stepped out,” he said. “So I popped her as well.”
First-time luck
Tristan Mizer has always been a bowhunter, and had never hunted with a rifle. But this summer he bought a .308, and he broke in the new firearm in style with a 160-inch brute on Halloween morning.
“I just wanted to try (rifle hunting) out and see if I could kill something,” the Leesville hunter said. “Lo and behold, this deer walked out.”
Mizer knew the buck was on the Natchitoches Parish lease, having captured several trail-cam photos of the deer over the past 18 months.
“Last year, in March, I had gotten him on a trail cam, and then I never did see him again,” said Mizer, who goes by the screen name “Buckeye 10” on LouisianaSportsman.com. “Then in the first part of September, I got him again on camera. I got six pictures of him.”
So he created a food plot in the woods near the trail-cam location, and set up a double ladder stand.
He hunted the stand often when bow season opened, and Oct. 31 found him and buddy Sean Sturm easing through the woods to sit the stand.
“My buddy hadn’t been seeing any deer, so he came and sat with me,” Mizer said. “I was going to let him shoot something.”
But the early morning didn’t start very well.
“We left the truck at 5:30, but it took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to the stand,” Mizer said. “Every couple of steps, another deer would jump.
“We probably jumped a dozen deer.”
So it was 6:45 before the two hunters finally settled into the stand. Mizer wasn’t very optimistic.
“I didn’t figure I would see anything,” he said. “Every single one of those deer blew at me.”
And for the first hour, nothing happened. Just before 8 a.m., Mizer decided to stand to stretch his legs. Sturm remained seated.
“I just happened to look to my left, and I had hunted the stand so often I saw something that looked out of place,” Mizer said. “What it was was the deer’s front legs.”
He quietly told Sturm about the deer that was only about 50 yards away, and told his buddy to get ready to shoot.
However, as Sturm eased the rifle up, the deer took another step and Mizer’s heart palpitated.
“When he took that step, I could see one tine,” Mizer said. “When I saw that one time, I knew it was him.”
The tine in question was unique to the deer, stretching sky high.
“His G2s on both sides were so long, so when I saw that tine, I knew it was him,” he said.
Mizer eased down and took the rifle from Sturm, and carefully laid it across the shooting rail.
“When he stepped out in that opening, I didn’t want him to go any farther so I shot him,” Mizer said. “He fell in his tracks.”
The hunters hurried to the deer, and Mizer’s mouth dropped.
“He’s actually bigger than I thought he was,” the hunter said. “He didn’t look like he had that much mass in the trail cam pictures, and I couldn’t tell how big his body was in the pictures.”
The buck’s rack held 10 points, most of which were long and thick. The G2s eventually taped out 13 2/8 inches each, with brow tines measuring just short of 9 inches.
The body size stunned Mizer, as well.
“He weighed 238 pounds,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe how big that deer was, both in body and in antlers.”
Simmons Sporting Goods scored the deer at 160 2/8 as part of its big buck contest.
“I’m just tickled,” Mizer said. “Sometimes I still don’t know what to think.”
Yes, dear
By Glynn Harris
Sometimes men get too macho for our own good; we think we know more than we actually do. It often takes a gentle word or suggestion or intuition from our better halves to cause us to stop for a minute, rethink things and realize, by golly, they’re right.
Had 35-year-old Mitchell Ritchie not heeded the prodding and urging of his wife Amanda, the huge 12-point he arrowed late on the afternoon of Oct. 7 would have likely been a nice meal for coyotes.
After searching for the deer he shot with his crossbow until midnight, Mitchell wanted to give up; Amanda wouldn’t let him.
But here’s how the story began.
“I got up that morning wanting to go hunting, but I had to attend a safety meeting at work, a meeting that lasted until noon,” Ritchie said. “After the meeting, I drove home, grabbed my gear and headed for my stand around 1 p.m.”
Fortunately Ritchie didn’t have far to go to reach his stand; he lives and hunts on 30 acres near Goodwill in West Carroll Parish, and the walk to his deer stand covered all of 250 yards.
“I had put out some piles of corn and rice bran, and had ranged the distances of the piles from the box stand I hunt because, since I was hunting with my crossbow, I needed to know how far I’d be shooting,” Ritchie said. “At 50 yards, my bow shoots flat, but after that it starts dropping.”
A couple of hours into the hunt, deer began showing up to snack on the corn and bran.
“It started getting pretty late, and I knew the hunt would soon be over when I looked up and there stood two big bucks in my lane 50 yards from my stand,” he said. “What surprised me is that I had trail cameras out, and I had never seen either one of these bucks.”
His first inclination was to focus on the buck with fewer points, but he soon changed his mind.
“One was a big 9-point buck that, at first, I thought was the more impressive of the two,” Ritchie explained. “The 12-point buck was standing broadside at 50 yards, so I put the crosshairs on him and squeezed off a shot.
“He hunkered up and took off.”
Ritchie sat for 30 to 40 minutes to give the deer time to expire, and then he got down, walked over to where the deer was standing and found nothing. Not a drop of blood, no hair, no arrow. Nothing.
“I began having doubts: Did I aim too high, too low, did I completely miss the deer?” he said. “So I decided to walk back to the house, tell my wife about my bad shot and lick my wounds.”
Wife Amanda would not hear of it. She’d seen him shoot and knew he was an excellent marksman; she felt in her heart he’d killed the buck. So grabbing lights, they headed back to the woods.
“The first thing we found was a big spot of blood,” Ritchie said. “There was a good blood trail for 30 yards or so, and then it dwindled away to nothing. At this point, I was really feeling discouraged and just knew I’d messed up big time.”
They took a break, went back home, got some water and, although he wanted to give up, Amanda Ritchie insisted they go back and look some more. So they did.
Fifty yards from where the last drop of blood was found, Mitchell Ritchie found his broken arrow covered with blood.
“That really got me excited because I knew then I’d probably made a good shot,” he said. “We continued to search, covering maybe 10 yards in half an hour. I was finding a tiny speck of blood occasionally when the trail led into a tangle of briars and brush.
“We got down on all fours and looked for blood.”
Ritchie told his wife to stay with the last drop of blood they found while he made just one more round. He said his heart wasn’t in it and he was sure the deer was lost.
“I stepped around a cedar tree, shined my light around and the beam settled on the rump of the deer; he was dead,” Ritchie said. “I could see one side of his rack but not the other, so I didn’t know what I had.
“When I got around and picked up his head, I saw a rack I couldn’t believe.”
The couple pulled and tugged on the deer, getting him to a fairly clear spot, went home and got the four-wheeler. However, there was no way the two could lift the heavy-bodied buck onto the machine.
“I didn’t have a rope, so we used my belt,” Ritchie said. “I bear-hugged the deer enough for Amanda to get it around his neck, and she hooked the belt to the rear rack of the four-wheeler.
“We dragged the deer to the house.”
By now, the clock read well past midnight and, after gutting and skinning the buck, cutting it up and putting it on ice, it was 3 a.m. They had no scales capable of weighing such a large animal, but Ritchie weighed him in parts, including the hide and guts, and the total weight was just slightly over 300 pounds.
The buck, a symmetrical 12-point, carried a 19-inch spread and scored 159 7/8 at Simmons Sporting Goods.
Would Mitchell Ritchie have been able to recover his buck without the help of his wife? Possibly, but with Amanda Ritchie prodding him on, the odds were tipped decidedly in his favor.
Change is good
Hammond’s Brandon Amar really wasn’t after a big buck when he dropped off his buddy Oct. 16 for a hunt on the 6,000-acre hunting club. It’s not that he didn’t want to kill a monster; Amar just decided to break away from the feed trees around which he had been seeing deer to check out what was going on in a thicket.
He came away that morning with a typical 8-point that has greenscored 155 inches.
“I shot a 145-inch 8-point last season, and I thought I would never top that,” Amar said. “And now I’ve killed this one.”
The hunter had been seeing nice bucks since opening day while hunting feed trees on the hunting lease, but he had been focusing on putting does on the ground because club rules state that each buck shot must be preceded by a doe.
“I already shot three does because I wanted to get them out of the way,” Amar said.
So on Oct. 16, he dropped off buddy Ryan Wooten at one of the feed trees with the instructions to kill a doe, while Amar moved away from feed trees to a thicket that had a good game trail winding through it.
“I decided, ‘I’m just going to sit on that stand and see what happens,’” Amar said. “I really didn’t think anything was going to happen. It really was more of a rut kind of set up.”
In addition to being where he wasn’t super confident, most of his deer sightings had been in the afternoon.
“(The day before) I saw some deer at 9 (a.m.) and 10 (a.m.),” he said. “So I told Ryan I was going to hunt until about 10.”
And it was looking like he wasn’t going to see a single deer, until at 9:45 a.m. a doe popped out about 50 yards away.
“I wasn’t going to shoot another doe, but I texted Ryan that if she came in I may shoot her,” Amar said.
The hunter eased to his feet and prepared to take a shot if the deer wandered a bit closer — and then he heard something behind him.
“I looked back, and three bucks were 30 yards from my stand,” Amar said. “They were just walking through the thicket, just browsing along.”
At first, he only saw two of the deer. But his heart rate increased, because each of the 8-points was a mature deer that would score out in the 130s.
“I thought, ‘I’m killing one of those when one of them comes in,’” Amar said.
While he eased around to get in position, movement caught his eye and the third deer came into view. His heart was now racing.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, that’s a shooter. I’m shooting it,’” Amar said.
The deer was only an 8-point, but those points looked like skyscrapers mounted on the long, thick main beams.
The three bucks were in line, feeding directly down the trail passing near Amar’s stand and through a hole in the thick foliage.
“My only fear was that the smaller 8s would get to me first, and something would happen and I wouldn’t get a shot at the big deer,” he said.
As if reading his mind, the big buck broke out of the single-file line and looped around in the thicket to take the lead.
“They were in single file, browsing along right to me,” Amar said.
And then the monster stopped about 10 yards from the concealed and anxious hunter.
“He stayed there for what seemed like forever, but was probably three to five minutes,” Amar said. “He was just hanging out there, and there was nothing I could do because it was so thick.”
When the animal began moving once more, Amar breathed a sigh of relief — the buck headed straight for his shooting hole.
At 15 yards, Amar made a mouth grunt to stop the deer and released his arrow.
“The buck ran about 50 yards and stopped and looked back,” the hunter said. “I’m thinking, ‘Please fall; please fall.’”
He also was thinking that he might have hit the deer a tad too far back.
“I knew I was center mass, but I really thought I put it 3 to 4 inches farther back than I wanted,” Amar said.
The deer certainly didn’t look like it was hurt.
“The deer was still just standing there when I heard one of the other deer,” Amar said. “I looked at it, and it was still browsing.
“When I looked back, my deer was gone.”
His knees went weak as his heart sank.
Knowing he had put the arrow through the deer but fearing he might have gut shot the beast, Amar waited a long 20 minutes before climbing down.
“I walked to where I shot the deer, and I found my arrow coated with blood,” he said. “There was just a slight stench of gut.
“I thought, ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.’”
Not wanting to push a wounded deer up, Amar reluctantly picked up Wooten and headed back to the camp. Buddy Johnny “Mack” Livingston looked at the arrow and proclaimed the deer was probably dead.
“He said, ‘Let’s go get your deer,’” Amar said. “But I told him that I was going to give it until 1 p.m.”
While they sat around waiting, Amar told his friends that the deer was really nice — but he hedged his bet.
“I told them it would probably score 145,” he said. “I didn’t want to look like an idiot if we got to it and it wasn’t as big as I thought it was.
“A 150-inch 8-point is a rarity, so you don’t go around talking about that.”
Finally, the three headed to the woods. They found no blood, so Amar just began walking along the trail down which he believed the deer ran.
“I went about 20 yards and I still saw no blood. Not a drop,” he said.
So he pulled out his binocs and eased a little farther from the stand site.
“I really expected him to get up and run,” Amar said.
He stopped and prepared to glass the woods in hopes of spotting the deer laid up, and a sound caught his attention.
“I’m standing there just brokenhearted, and out of my left ear I hear ‘buzzzzz,’” Amar said. “Before I even turned, I said, ‘God, let it be flies buzzing on a dead deer.’”
Sure enough, the deer was lying right next to him.
“I was standing probably 5 feet from him,” Amar said. “He was stone dead.”
Livingston was dumbfounded when he saw the rack on the buck.
“Mack told me, ‘That’s bigger than you thought it was,’” Amar laughed.
The foundation of the rack were main beams stretching 24½ inches from base to tip that held great mass all the way out, and topping off the crown were 12½-inch G2s and 10½-inch G3s.
It’s just as close to perfect as a hunter could ask.
“He only has about an inch, 1¼ inches of deductions,” Amar said.
Light shone from heaven
Andrew LaFleur III has a secret weapon. It’s not a gun. It’s not a special scent or camo pattern. It’s not even a technique.
No, LaFleur’s secret weapon is his 8-year-old daughter Karly Bree LaFleur, who proved she is better than a horseshoe on Nov. 13 when she attracted a huge 11-point estimated to score in the low 150s to a stand in which she and her father were sitting.
“Two years ago, she was with me when I killed a 10-point that scored 141 and some change,” said the elder LaFleur, who goes by “SUPER DREW” on the LouisianaSportsman.com forum.
LaFleur’s latest trophy came after some pre-season preparations to a stand site from which the Ragley hunter killed a 130-class 9-point last year while hunting his lease in Merryville.
“I cleared lanes during the summer and put up some ladder stands to hunt with my daughter,” LaFleur explained.
He also put out cameras, but failed to capture a single good buck.
“The cameras I’ve got are pretty crappy, so they take about five pictures and the batteries are dead,” LaFleur said. “I got pictures of some button bucks, a hog and a possum.”
But he still headed for the stand early on Nov. 13, after rousing Karly from bed at about 4 a.m.
“My daughter is not a big fan of hunting all day, so we’ve got a deal: We hunt until noon, and if she behaves herself, I let her get a DVD from the Red Box and she can get some candy,” LaFleur said.
As usual, the pair stopped during the hour-long drive to the lease and shared some breakfast.
Once at the lease, which doesn’t follow any kind of quality deer management scheme, the team pulled on camo, sprayed each other down with scent eliminator and eased to the stand 200 yards away.
“Once we got about 80 yards from the stand, we sprayed doe-in-heat (scent) on our boots for the last little bit of the walk,” LaFleur said.
They settled into the stand about 20 minutes before daylight, and their routine settled in. First, Karly took a short nap, waking up as the sun was brightening the lanes.
“We were watching little critters and birds flying around,” LaFleur said. “We weren’t seeing any deer.”
Karly spent a bit of time looking through her father’s binoculars, and then they shared some chocolate chip cookies about 7:15 a.m.
“Not much is going on,” LaFleur said. “We’re just kind of enjoying the time in the woods.”
About 30 minutes later, LaFleur heard a twig snap, and he told his daughter to be quiet.
“Immediately, she turned to me and said, ‘What did you hear? What did you hear?” he said.
LaFleur quieted her down, and started watching the lane to his left, in the direction the sound had come.
Karly settled into her father’s left shoulder, and LaFleur finally took an inventory of his other lanes.
“I looked back, and there was some grass on the edge of the lane,” he said. “I thought, ‘Those branches look funny moving like that.”
Of course, he wasn’t seeing branches.
“He just stepped out in that lane, and I thought, ‘Oh my God!’” LaFleur said. “I grabbed Karly by the arm and said, ‘Get up real slow.’”
Karly’s head snapped around, and she couldn’t help herself.
“She said, ‘There’s a deer, Daddy!’” LaFleur chuckled.
His rifle was still leaning against the railing of the stand as the buck eased farther out. And then it turned and looked right at the stand.
“He knew the stand was there, and I guess he was just trying to see if anything was in it,” LaFleur said. “We were like stone.”
That’s when the hunter got a pretty good look at the buck’s head gear, and his heart went into overdrive.
“All I could see was like it is on the movies — that beam of light came down and it was, like, ‘Whhhhaaaa!’” LaFleur said. “I swear that’s what it looked like.”
When the deer put its head down, LaFleur quickly grabbed his rifle while Karly slowly leaned back to provide room for her father to place the rifle on the stand’s left shooting rail.
“I told her to cover her ears, and she did that slowly, calmly,” LaFleur said.
The buck had begun walking again, so LaFleur did the only thing he’s ever found to stop a deer.
“I went, ‘Hey!’ and he stopped,” he explained. “I put (the cross hairs) right behind the shoulder and squeezed off a shot.
“I knew I had made a good shot.”
The buck took off straight away from the stand while LaFleur chambered another round and frantically looked for the deer in the scope.
“I was about to squeeze off another shot, and he wobbled to the right and wobbled to the left and then flipped over,” he said. “My daughter was like, ‘Oh, yeah!’”
The buck never got up again. After a few minutes of trying to keep Karly from jumping out of the stand, the celebration really began.
“We’re both shaking. There were probably a few tears going on,” LaFleur said.
And, after ensuring the rifle safety was engaged, LaFleur helped his daughter out of the stand to go claim the trophy.
But he didn’t see it right way.
“I was looking in the grass on the edge of the lane, telling her, ‘Here’s blood. It went this way,’” LaFleur said. “She said, ‘Daddy, he’s right there.’”
The buck was in the lane, and LaFleur could see one long main beam sticking up above the stout body.
“I was, like, ‘Holy crap!’” he said.
He was stunned because, even though he had experienced a moment of euphoria in the stand, LaFleur really hadn’t focused on the rack.
“I kind of saw the horns for the second when I shot at him, but I don’t focus on the antlers when I’m shooting at a deer,” he said. “I can’t do that.”
The buck had 11 points arrayed around the main beams. It has been estimated to go in the low 150s — and three tines had been broken off.
While he’ll be proud to put it on the wall next to his other two trophies, what LaFleur is proudest of is that he shared another great hunt with Karly.
“That makes it a million times better, just having her with me when I killed it,” he said. “Just sharing it with my daughter made it so special.”
Ground shrinkage reversed
Kris Russell was duck hunting Dec. 26 on his father-in-law’s Tensas Parish property when he decided exactly where he’d deer hunt that afternoon.
“We actually walked across the food plot and jumped a couple of ducks in the (Missisippi) river run,” the Monroe hunter said. “I saw several fresh, I mean fresh, stinking scrapes right along the water.”
And the final sign that sealed the deal was a single hoof print.
“It looked like a 250-pound deer had been standing there,” Russell said. “I told my father-in-law, ‘I know where I’m hunting this afternoon.’”
So when a buddy arrived, the two men headed to the woods and Russell climbed into the stand overlooking the food plot about 2:30 p.m.
About 4:30, a yearling walked out and milled about. It was followed about 10 minutes later by two does and two more yearlings. All the deer were “dead downwind” of Russell’s location, which concerned him.
But about 4:45, he saw movement at the edge of the food plot, and a buck trotted into the opening.
“I could tell immediately he was a mature buck,” Russell said. “His legs looked to be about a foot long. His body was so big; his belly looked like it was almost dragging the ground.”
Russell glanced at the rack, but didn’t hesitate long.
“The only thing I remember that stood out was his G3s,” he said. “They actually leaned out.”
However, he didn’t want to allow the buck to move any farther onto the food plot.
“If he would have gone a few more steps, he would have winded me,” Russell said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
So he shouldered his rifle, placed the cross hairs and fired. The buck never took another step.
However, Russell still didn’t know what he had knocked down.
“My buddy was about 300 yards from me, so I texted him, ‘Big buck down!’” Russell said. “He texted back, ‘How big?’
“I told him, ‘135 inches plus.’
And with that, he settled down to wait until dark so he didn’t mess up his friend’s hunt.
So when he walked up, it was a complete surprise to find a giant rack atop the deer’s head. The main beams of the 9-point stretched 20 1/2 inches, and the widest point between the G3s was 25 inches.
It was the mass, however, that made the greatest impression.
“Its mass was just incredible,” Russell said. “The last (mass) measurement was 4 7/8.
“It’s the only time I’ve seen ground shrinkage reversed.”
The deer weighed 239 pounds, and aged out at 6½ years old.
It greenscored 161 inches Boone & Crockett.
“Merry Christmas to me,” Russell wrote when he entered the deer in the LouisianaSportman.com Deer of the Year contest.
A deal’s a deal
Jared Hebert and 14-year-old daughter Lunden had an agreement when they headed to their East Baton Rouge Parish hunting club Christmas day: Lunden would be allowed to shoot a doe for her first deer, but there were stipulations attached to her killing a buck.
“I told her, ‘If it’s a buck smaller than anything I have on the wall already, it’s for you. If it’s larger than anything I have on the wall, it’s for me,’” the elder Hebert said.
Lunden quickly knocked out her doe that afternoon, and the father-daughter team celebrated her baptism into the hunting community.
The Perry hunters went back to the same stand the next morning, after seeing a big hooking on a willow tree, but didn’t see any shooters.
So when they headed back to the stand that afternoon, they took a little different tack on their approach.
“We parked the four-wheeler 600 to 800 yards from the stand,” Hebert said. “I had heard some deer blowing from around the four-wheeler (during the morning hunt).”
They made the long walk and settled into the box stand about 2:30 p.m., and soon the deer were filtering out into the food plot.
“We had 10 or 11 does, a small 8-point and one other 8-point that was just outside the ears,” Hebert said. “I was looking at that (larger) 8-point to let (Lunden) shoot.”
His eyes were glued to the binoculars to assess the deer. In the meantime, Lunden was checking the woods.
“She said, ‘Daddy, look at the deer coming out of the woods,’” Jared Hebert said. “I thought she was looking at the same deer, so I said, ‘I see it.’
“But she said, ‘No, Daddy, look at that other deer.’”
Hebert swung the binoculars, and almost dropped them.
A much bigger buck had stepped onto the green patch about 125 yards out, and it didn’t take much looking to know it was a shooter.
“When I turned and looked at it through the binoculars, I knew it was one I wanted to shoot,” Hebert said.
It also didn’t take young Lunden long to figure out who would be pulling the trigger.
“She said, ‘That’s one for you, for sure,’” Jared Hebert said.
His .300 Winchester magnum was eased into position, but it took a few minutes for the deer to turn broadside.
“It was facing right at the stand, so I would have had to shoot through the brisket, and I didn’t want to do that,” Hebert said.
So he waited, and the deer eased closer and closer.
“It probably took four or five minutes for it to get to the does, which were about 60 yards from the stand,” Hebert said. “When he got to the does, he turned broadside and stopped.”
The gun belched, and the buck sat back on its rear haunches and then launched in the air. It hit the ground, and disappeared in a little dip in the ground.
Lunden was the first to get to the deer, as her father wondered exactly what he had killed.
“When she picked up the horns, I could see he was ridiculous,” Jared Hebert said of the 230-pound deer.
The rack held 12 points around an 18 1/8-inch inside spread. Three brow tines accented the right side of the rack.
The buck roughed out at 165 inches Boone & Crockett.
Running crazy
Ryan Riche’ had a trail-cam picture of a great buck from last August, and he had put his time in trying to ambush it. But it wasn’t until Dec. 27 that the 22-year-old finally got a look at the Avoyelles Parish deer.
“The deer has a G3 that looks like it splits, and when he stepped I saw that,” Riche’ said. “I thought, ‘Oh my God! That’s the one.’”
Riche’ was overlooking three shooting lanes when five does ran across one of the green patches about 3:45 p.m. The hunter snapped his binoculars to his eyes, and watched as a really nice 8-point followed the last doe into the woods about 120 yards away from the stand.
“She was running back and forth (across the opening),” Riche’ said.
While he was watching the 8-point through the glasses, something unexpected happened.
“(A deer) came out of the woods and slapped (the 8-pointer) with his horns,” Riche’ said.
This buck was obviously dominant, and Riche’ traded his binoculars for his rifle. That’s when he noticed the weird G3.
The buck quickly disappeared with the doe, but the pair soon returned.
“They probably ran across the food plot four or five times,” Riche’ said. “They were just going in the woods and coming back out.”
Finally, the doe trotted out and stopped momentarily at a pile of rice bran before bolting again. The big buck reached the bran, and made its fatal mistake.
“He stopped for about 10 seconds,” Riche’ said. “That’s when I shot him.”
The buck streaked away, and Riche’ was left to wonder.
Not wanting to spook the deer if it was only wounded, Riche’ waited until dark and headed to the camp. When his father returned from his own hunt, the younger Riche’ had the trail cam photos out.
“I told him, ‘I’m 95 percent sure that it’s that deer right there,’” Riche’ said.
They returned to the woods, and found a blood trail. However, they called off the search after not finding the deer down close to the food plot.
“It was cold, and we didn’t want to push it,” Riche’ said.
The next morning found a party of about 10 combing the woods.
“I knew the trail he was following, and we just followed it,” Riche’ said.
The blood trail was intermittent, but finally the group walked up on the downed animal.
“I just saw a big set of horns,” Riche’ laughed.
That was an understatement. The calcium crown was composed of 15 scoreable points arrayed around an 18-inch-wide frame that sprouted from bases greater than 5½ inches around.
It greenscored 167 7/8 inches Boone & Crockett.
Riche’ said he had no clue it was that massive when he squeezed off the shot.
“I never knew until I got to the deer how many points he had,” the young hunter said.
Aerial attack
Mike Hymel takes his deer hunting seriously, and the fact that he hunts public property just pushes him to look for every advantage he can find. So when he found a line of hookings on Dewey Wills Wildlife Management Area, he backed out and pulled out his secret weapon.
“Once I found the big hookings, I didn’t really pursue looking around the area,” Hymel said. “I used some aerial maps to determine which way I thought deer would be moving.”
Basically, he looked for variations in colors to determine where the topography and cover changed. And then he hatched his plan for a Jan. 6 hunt.
“I knew the general direction these deer would be moving, and I considered the wind direction and then went in and set up a ground blind,” Hymel explained.
On the day he packed his blind the nearly mile-long hike, Hymel didn’t leave until the sun was throwing its first light over the thick woods.
“I waited until it was just breaking daylight so I could sneak in without a flashlight,” he said.
Hymel’s approach was confirmed about 7:30 a.m., when a coyote eased out of the woods near the hook line.
“It came within 15 yards of my ground blind,” he said. “He didn’t see me, and he didn’t smell me.”
An hour later, he saw his first deer of the day: A big doe ran through the woods upwind of his position. Ten minutes later another doe broke out of the brush in the same spot.
The concealed hunter focused his attention on that area, and was quickly rewarded.
“As soon as I saw the first (doe), I knew a buck was probably chasing them,” Hymel said. “About 15 seconds after (the second doe came out), I saw some big horns in the button brush.”
Hymel could tell little about the calcium atop the buck’s head, except that it was crazy.
“I thought, ‘My God! Look at the size of those drop tines,’” he said. “I about had heart failure.”
However, the deer was on a mission.
“He pretty much ran out and stopped, and then ran straight at my blind,” he said. “While the deer was running to me, I was moving my rifle slowly to the right.”
The deer was only 40 yards out when the hunter finally pushed the rifle around and into his shoulder.
“When I did that, the deer stopped and looked at me,” Hymel said. “I think he nailed me.”
But it was too late. Hymel put the cross hairs on the center of the deer’s brisket, and squeezed the trigger.
The deer ran about 60 yards before piling up.
Oddly, Hymel said the big-racked buck shrank on him, but even with ground shrinkage the hunter had downed a monster.
The buck carried 14 scoreable points, including an incredible 10-inch drop tine hanging off the left side of the rack. It greenscored 165 4/8 inches Boone & Crockett.
Out of nowhere
By Todd Masson
Wiley Averett, 43, has a 230-acre lease near his house in Livingston Parish that he really enjoys hunting, but a few times a year, he gets struck by a case of wanderlust. That’s when he makes the drive from home to Red River Wildlife Management Area.
Such was the case on the afternoon of New Years Day.
Averett had used his Ol’ Man treestand to climb a hardwood in a nondescript chunk of bottomlands, and didn’t see much to keep him entertained — certainly no deer.
“There was a 20- or 30-foot-wide clearing behind me, and every now and then, I’d turn around and look at that clearing,” he said.
Around 4:30, Averett made his turn, and his eyes about popped out of his head. Standing there was the biggest buck he’d ever seen in his life.
“He was just walking through,” Averett said. “I thought, ‘The only shot I have is in this opening.’”
So the hunter spun his body around, leveled his Browning .270 and fired off a shot.
The deer fell to the ground but held its head up. Averett wasn’t taking any chances, so he shot the deer again.
“This is the type of deer you see on TV shows,” he said.
Averett and his buddies put a tape to it, and measured the rack at 188 inches. The mainframe 12-point had an 18-inch inside spread and 25-inch main beams.
