Her name is Presley, but everybody calls her “Bam Bam.” She’s the 9-year-old daughter of 45-year-old Benjie Carpenter, who lives near Goldonna and who works as a regional vice president for a pipeline company.
Presley is a serious deer hunter herself, having filled her tags last season and already taken three this season. She was sitting in the homemade box stand with her dad the afternoon of Dec. 9 when the buck they had given the name “Heavy D” stepped out and the elder Carpenter got him.
First, some history is in order to understand Carpenter’s relationship with this old buck. A deer that had been hanging around the property his family hunts in Winn Parish for several years.
“I have been trying to waylay this buck seriously over the past several years,” Carpenter said. “Two years ago, he was a big 9-point and we almost had the chance at him on a hunt my wife and I made in December.
“I was hoping my wife would be the one to finally be able to down the buck, one we had patterned and determined that he usually disappeared from cameras in January and we wouldn’t see any evidence of him until the following November.
“We were on the stand together and I was hopeful she would be able to get a shot at the buck when he appeared with a spike and smaller buck chasing a doe. Before she could get on him, he disappeared into the thicket.”
Forget the hogs
Carpenter had decided to make a hog hunt early on a Sunday morning before the family headed to church, when he checked his camera by way of his phone and saw that the big buck had finally shown up after not seeing any evidence of him since the previous January.
“I forgot all about hogs and told my wife I was going to hunt the buck every free minute I had,” he said.
On the afternoon of Dec. 9, the weather was unseasonably warm with thunderstorms forecast. Even so, Carpenter and daughter Presley headed for his deer stand.
“I was watching radar to see what the weather was going to do when I began hearing something in the woods,” Carpenter said. “I thought at first it was maybe a bird of some sort when I realized I was hearing a buck grunting. About that time, a doe darted out with the big buck behind her. I tried whistling to stop him but he never let up and paid me no attention.
“Five minutes later, the doe came running out again with the buck in hot pursuit. They were milling around the thicket and he finally stopped in an opening at 110 yards with just his neck in the clear. I got on him with my Browning .270 A-Bolt, hit the trigger and he dropped.”
A big hug
Instead of being disappointed that she wasn’t able to take the buck, Presley turned around with a big grin and gave her dad a big hug.
“I had told her after she filled all her tags last year,” Carpenter said, “that she would have a chance at Heavy D this season. She said, ‘No daddy, that’s your deer. I just want to be there with you when you get him.’”
The buck, estimated to be 8 ½ years old, weighed 190 pounds and sported 13 points with bases over 4 inches all the way out the rack. Inside spread was 17 ½ inches. Simmons’ Sporting Goods in Bastrop measured the rack at 159 6/8 inches.