For 22-year-old Drew Landry of Youngsville, the second time was the charm.
Landry almost killed a huge buck on private land in Avoyelles Parish on Friday, Oct. 11, but the buck was 5 minutes late showing up near Landry’s ladder stand in a grove of oak trees.
“I couldn’t see my (sight) pins,” said Landry, a student at Notre Dame Seminary Graduate School of Theology in New Orleans.
“He came in to 10 yards and made a rub,” Landry said. “He was beating a tree. It sounded like he got his horns stuck in a woodpile. I was shaking; I could see him. I could see him through binoculars. I could have killed him with a rifle. But I couldn’t see my pins.”
The buck had arrived in range at 7:05 p.m., according to Landry.
The next evening, the buck made a fatal mistake; it got there 15 minutes earlier, and Landry anchored it with a perfect quartering-away shot from his Hoyt RX7 bow, the Axis arrow tipped with a Grim Reaper broadhead. The arrow split a lung, went through the heart and came out of the buck’s brisket, just inside its shoulder.
Landry’s 240-pound buck carried a 6×6 typical rack with an 18-inch inside spread 24 7/8-inch main beams and four different tines measuring 9 4/8 inches each. Landry’s father, Steve, and an uncle rough-scored the buck at 179 4/8 gross and 164 ⅞ net – the latter score, if it holds, making it the sixth-largest typical archery buck in Louisiana history.
Fall break
Landry, who has been bowhunting for 10 years – he took a 160-class buck at age 14 – said he had come home for fall break, planning to do some hunting. His father told him there was a huge buck using one area – the senior Landry had a trail-cam photo, as well as another photo that was several years old – so Drew Landry climbed the ladder and waited.
“We knew he was there; my dad said, ‘Son, there’s a big buck in this area.’ I hunted three days straight and killed him the last day.”
Landry was in his stand by 3:45 last Saturday, He didn’t see a deer until 6:50, when the buck eased into the area coming almost straight to Landry, moving slightly right to left.
“He came in like he had no idea I was there,” Landry said. “I think he was coming from a bedding area to the acorns.
“I was breathing heavy, then freaking out. I calmed down enough to shoot, then I freaked out again.”
Landry took a quartering-away shot and made a perfect one. The buck tore off, but Landry heard him fall within 5 or 10 seconds.
“I called my dad; he said he’d gotten a trail-cam photo and thought it was a smaller buck,” Landry said. “It must have been the angle of the photo.”
A big boy
There was no mistaking the buck when they found him.
“I stayed up 30 minutes before Dad got there on the 4-wheeler,” Landry said. “I got smoked by the mosquitos before he got there. Then, we blood-trailed him. He only went 20 yards.”
The shot was a clean pass-through, but the Landrys didn’t spend any time looking for the spent arrow. They got him to a set of scales, which judged the buck at 240 pounds.
“He had a big gut,” Landry said. “They had some old pics from several years ago, and they thought he was 5½ then.
“He is a once-in-a-lifetime deer.”