Richland Parish farmer David Branch had discovered a big buck on his farm south of his home in Rayville. On Sunday afternoon, Dec. 10, Branch was on his stand when a bobcat appeared, Branch shot the cat and surprisingly, immediately thereafter, the big buck showed up.
“After shooting the bobcat, the buck walked out and I hadn’t reloaded my 6.5 Creedmore rifle,” Branch said. “He walked off before I could get a bullet in.”
Not giving up, Branch headed from his home to his farm the next morning, Dec. 11, believing that the big buck was still in the area, but as he opened the gate with plans to take the half mile walk to his stand, two of his 7-month-old “cow dogs” showed up.
“It took me probably half an hour to catch the dogs and put them in the pen so I was late getting to my stand,” he said. “In fact, I thought about just going back home and giving it up for the day with plans to come back the next day. I decided since I was already there, I’d go ahead and hunt. I walked on to my box stand, which is in a cow pasture with rye grass planted.”
Suspicious behavior
Soon after getting in his stand and getting settled, Branch watched a doe and yearling feeding on the rye grass and he saw a different smaller buck back behind a brush pile. Something about the behavior of the doe and yearling got his attention.
“They were looking in my direction slightly to my left and I wondered what they may be looking at,” Branch said. “I knew I had the wind in my favor so they couldn’t be smelling me. Then I looked out my left window and there 75 yards away walked the big buck. My heart skipped a beat as I tried to get my rifle around without bumping anything. I finally got my scope on him and decided when he stopped walking, I’d take the shot.”
When the buck stopped at 85 yards, he was quartering away from Branch and he took the shot. The buck ran and disappeared behind some brush.
“I called my brothers and my son and told them what had happened,” he said. “I remained in my stand for about 30 minutes before getting down and checking on him.”
Walking to the spot where the buck was standing, there was no blood nor evidence he was hit. Branch continued walking the way the buck had run and he saw the buck piled up behind the brush.
The buck sported a rack of 8 points, had an inside spread of 20 3/8 inches with main beams more than 24 inches and bases over 5 inches each, weighed in at 200 pounds and was judged to be 7 ½ years old.
Buckmaster scorer Cecil Reddick scored the rack at 161 3/8 inches.
Neither a bobcat nor a pair of rambunctious puppies were able to keep David Branch from downing his prize buck.