Russell Colvin, 33, who lives in Dubach and works at a chemical plant in El Dorado, Arkansas, found himself with time on his hands soon after deer season began a year ago. The club he was on only allowed one buck, and in early November he downed a nice one, so he was done for the year on that club. But he still had the itch to deer hunt.
“Since I killed my one buck early, I started looking around for another place I could hunt,” Colvin said. “I found this 25 acre tract in Union Parish not far from the town of Bernice. I found the owner who lived in Florida. He said the property was not leased and gave me permission to hunt it.”
One good buck
Colvin looked the property over, put out a camera, but nothing interesting showed up. Even so, he contacted the property owner again and asked if he was interested in selling the plot.
“The owner agreed to sell it to me so here I was with my own 25 acres and although my initial scoping it out didn’t show me much, I decided to try and convert this land into something more attractive to deer,” Colvin said. “What triggered my interest was around Christmas last year, I did get one photo of a good buck, an 8-point in the 135-inch class. I put up a bow stand and hunted but he never showed up.”
After last season ended, Colvin went to work, converting his property into something more attractive to deer. He cleared land and prepared some five acres for food plots and planted peas for deer to feed on last summer. He started running cameras as early as May of last year and was able to follow the buck and watch him grow up. Around August, the buck disappeared, but on Sept. 6 there he was again in velvet. According to Colvin he was quite impressive.
“I pulled my cameras off every spot and concentrated on this one where I had seen him,” he said. “While I was shed hunting after last season, I found a huge scrape about 250 yards from where I had placed my box stand and about 100 yards off my big food plot and put a camera there.”
Hot scrape
On Wednesday, Nov. 1, the scrape suddenly became hot and Colvin’s phone was constantly pinging as there were deer on the scrape every half hour or so.
“I wasn’t able to hunt that afternoon, but the next day I left work and headed to my stand,” Colvin said. “I got there around 5:30. Fifteen minutes later, I got a picture on my phone of a small buck at the scrape. I put my phone down, it pinged again and there was the big one on the scrape. I started getting nervous because I felt like after he left the scrape, which I couldn’t see from my stand, he’d come out on my food plot.
“The smaller buck walked out first and I figured he would follow, and he did, stepping out at about 170 yards. I shoot a Winchester .270 Short Mag and I took the shot at him quartering away.”
The buck kicked and ran into the woods about 40 yards before he fell. The buck sported a main frame 8-point rack with a kicker making it a 9-point. The inside spread was 18 inches, main beams were 24 inches with bases over five inches. The buck weighed 217 pounds, was determined to be 5 ½ years old and scored 150 4/8 inches.
“I called my wife and told her to bring the kids,” Colvin said. “We have a 7-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, and when they saw it they were as excited as I was.”