His name is Brandon. He’s a bow hunter, a secretive bow hunter. He knew there was a big buck hanging out behind his sister-in-law, Kylie Brown’s house, but he didn’t tell anybody. He would sneak past the house on a bicycle to avoid detection. Kylie knew about the big buck too. Brandon didn’t get the buck. On the morning of Dec. 22, Kylie did.
Kylie Brown and her husband, Brad, live just outside Rayville in Richland Parish. She works as part-time school nurse at Riverfield Academy and is also a Mary Kay representative. They live on 40 acres of family land and when she gets ready for a deer hunt, she walks some 350 yards from her home to her box stand that overlooks a food plot with planted pines on both sides.
“At noon on Saturday, Dec. 19, Brad and I were headed to watch our 10-year-old son play basketball,” Brown said. “When friends came by our house earlier, they told my husband that had seen a really big buck in a field down the road.”
As the pair headed down the road to attend the game, they saw a doe cross the road just down from their house. The doe was followed by a big buck.
“That was the biggest buck I had ever seen and I told Brad let’s skip the game so I could go get on my stand,” she said. “He talked me out of it but the image of that buck was stuck in my head. The next morning, I crawled into my stand and except for a brief walk back to the house for lunch, I stayed in the stand all day. I saw several deer coming to the food plot but the big buck was a no-show.”
Persistence paid off
Monday morning, Kylie was back on her stand until noon and saw nothing; she decided to hunt a different stand that afternoon and no deer showed up in that area either.
“Tuesday morning, I had to talk myself into getting on my stand because the lack of activity the day before had discouraged me, but I got up, got dressed and climbed into my box stand before daylight,” Brown said. “Not long after daylight, I watched a deer we called “Broken 8” come out; much of his rack had been broken off. Then around 6:20, I could see two deer back behind our house and could tell one was a nice buck.”
Moments later, two does came out to the food plot. Brown was looking toward where she had seen the two deer earlier and when she looked back to her right, several does came running out of the corner of the food plot at around 200 yards.
“Right behind them was this really big buck; I knew it was the one Brad and I had seen Saturday,” she said. “My whole body was shaking and I was trying to get my gun out the window and on the rest and I was bumping and making all kinds of noise. By now, the buck was running and I’m trying to get on him. He finally stopped at 150 yards in a spot where I had to twist around to get my scope on him. I got my crosshairs on him and fired a shot, having no idea if I had hit him.”
A short search
The buck ran across the food plot but then stopped next to a water hole at the edge of the plot and just stood there.
“I was confused as to why he just stopped so I got another round chambered in my gun (she shoots a Remington .260 Model 7) and got off another shot,” she said. “He took off dragging one leg. I called Brad shaking and trying not to cry telling him what just happened. He told me to just sit tight; he’d be there in a minute.”
When Brad got there, they walked to the water puddle and started a search. Brad found the buck lying between the first and second rows of planted pine; he had only run 40 yards.
The buck, which carried a rack of 12 points, featured 25-inch main beams, inside spread of 19 4/8 inches with 5-inch bases. The rack was measured by Buck Master scorer, Cecil Reddick for a score of 168 2/8 inches.
Kylie was congratulated all around by friends. No word yet on Brandon’s response.